


Holy Water

by DasMervin, MrsHyde (DasMervin)



Series: The Writing on the Wall [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Apologies, Awesome Sam, Bittersweet, Blow Jobs, Bobby is still a troll, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Clinging, Confused Castiel, Confusion, Cuddling, Dean actually talks, Dean had it coming, Dean is a sap, Dean is an asshole, Declarations Of Love, Demisexuality, Domestic Castiel, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotions, Ex Girlfriend, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Extreme Doormat, Family Feels, Feels, Fights, Gender Confusion, Gender Issues, Goodbye Sex, Goodbyes, Guilty Castiel, Headcanon, Heavy Angst, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Human Castiel, I Love You, If it's you it's okay, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, Kissing, Love, Love Confessions, Lube, M/M, Makeup, Makeup Sex, Making Love, Making Out, Men Crying, Mental Anguish, Misunderstandings, Nerdy Castiel, Oral Sex, Post-Coital Cuddling, Protective Sam Winchester, Rough Kissing, Separations, Simultaneous Orgasm, Slash, Undressing, Verbal Abuse, but he looks out for Cas, he ignores other issues though, seriously the biggest one ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:45:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasMervin/pseuds/DasMervin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasMervin/pseuds/MrsHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After eight years of treating Cas like his brother outside of the bedroom and refusing to acknowledge his feelings, Dean finally realizes that he’s been taking him for granted, and that if he isn’t careful, he could drive him away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance meeting on the road causes Cas to realize a few hard truths about his relationship with Dean.

_October 22, 2020_

Sam supposed it was inevitable.

Looking back on it, he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Given that back in his younger days, Dean considered it his personal mission to sleep his way across the entire US, cutting a swath through beds and backseats alike, Sam guessed that only their tendency to stay on the move kept them from running into Dean’s old conquests more often than they did. But given their sheer _numbers_ , well, even then it still happened occasionally. In fact, as often as not it was the girls who spotted Dean, not the other way around—and they _always_ recognized him. It wasn’t something Sam particularly wanted to contemplate, but over the years, the reactions of Dean’s old flames upon meeting him again had made it pretty clear to Sam that his brother tended to leave an impression. To the point that, if the girl in question was still single at the time—yeah. Sam generally made himself scarce for a while and let them “catch up.”

Granted, these days, for Dean “catching up” really was nothing more than catching up. Unavailable or no, trying to keep him from flirting with girls was like trying to push water uphill. So he’d smirk and flirt and charm them like always—but then go on his way. He might be a bit bitchy about it afterwards, but he just never took them up on their offers anymore.

He still got a kick out of it anyway, though, and never turned down the chance to make a little time, even if it never went anywhere. Dean was over forty—a fact Sam took great pains to remind him of as often as possible before he himself joined him in that honorable estate—but still somehow managed to look so baby-faced to the point that Sam didn’t look any younger than he did anymore. As such, Dean’s age hadn’t at all stopped him from being a hit with the ladies—if anything, it had actually widened his demographic, rather to Sam’s disgust. So Dean still flirted, and Sam resignedly went along with it, just like they always had before.

They were on a case down in Elkins, West Virginia. There had been a series of freak drownings in an old mill pond, mostly children, that they thought might be something up their alley. After doing a little poking around, they were pretty well convinced that it was; there were signs of struggle on most of the victims, but more interestingly, all of them had strange marks on their bodies—mainly their hands—where the flesh was puffed and smooth, almost like burns. Definitely not typical.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much else to go on; there were no witnesses, so after questioning the victims’ families and sweeping the area itself and finding no signs of anything, they’d had to go back to good, old-fashioned research. They’d been up to their eyeballs in the town records for almost the past two days, looking for any local legends, violent deaths, the usual, and all of it had turned up squat. Dean had eventually started complaining that his ass was going numb, that he was getting a headache, and that he wanted to take a break and get some air that wasn’t from the musty inside of the library archives. Since Dean’s whining really wasn’t all that conducive to getting any serious work done, they had in fact taken a break, heading out into the warm afternoon sunshine. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet, but Dean wanted pie, so he’d dragged them to a diner a few blocks away—and the pie was good, Sam had to admit. Of course, he’d then stalled going back to their research by insisting that they stop at a fill-up joint for gas and cokes.

Sam had picked up today’s newspaper from the machine outside, but also wanted to restock their aspirin, and so bottle and paper in hand was making his way up to the counter where Dean had entered and was opening his wallet, when it happened.

“Dean?”

They both looked up; there was a blonde woman standing by the front as well, crossing by the racks of chewing gum, a smile spreading on her face. And Dean was grinning back, the smarm dialed up to eleven, and just like that Sam knew. He looked at her again—blonde and stacked, exactly Dean’s type, and vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t place her.

But he didn’t need to. Dean may have gone for the whole “love ‘em and leave ‘em” routine by necessity, but he never just _forgot_ ‘em.

“Jamie!” he beamed, and was quickly enveloped in a hug, one that he returned, and which was a little cozier on both their parts than would be for just friends. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m great,” she answered, pulling away.

Dean’s smile turned into a bit of a leer. “Well, you _look_ great, that’s for sure,” he informed her, clearly giving her the once over.

Sam could already tell that this one wasn’t unavailable; her look had turned speculative, and a slightly sultry note entered her voice when she replied, “Oh, you too.”

The woman—Jamie—looked over Dean’s shoulder and spotted Sam. “And Sam, too—hi!” she said, giving him a friendly wave.

“Hey,” Sam said genially, racking his brains. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine,” she answered, her attention quickly shifting back to Dean. “No more run-ins with monsters, anyway” she said.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Dean said. “You had more than your share—what brings you down here away from the land of Oktoberfest?”

Oh, yeah, that’s right—Sam remembered her. The “bar wench” who got fixated on by that really nutty shapeshifter—and who Dean lost his second virginity to after getting out of Hell, he recalled wryly.

“Visiting my great-aunt, lives outside of town; she broke her leg a few weeks ago and me and my mom and brother take turns coming down here to look out for her. And you?” she asked, smiling a little. “On the job again?”

Dean smiled with a shake of his head. “Never off it,” he told her.

Jamie gave him a mock-concerned look. “You know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” she said seriously, but her eyes were sparkling.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up, and then he was grinning, and Jamie was twisting a little, moving her hips, and now Dean was preening, and this was just getting disgusting, so with a dry smile Sam turned to leave them to it—

“They didn’t have the spicy nuts you wanted, Dean—will plain ones be all right?” Cas asked.

Oh, _shit_.

Cas had just come wandering over from the coolers, his hands full of coke bottles and bags of peanuts—Cas, who Bobby had sent off with them on this hunt to get him out from underfoot while he recovered from a nasty cold.

Cas, who was looking curiously at Jamie from where he’d come to stand next to Dean.

Dean went white. It was so extreme that Sam had a crazy urge to see if his blood was actually pooling at his feet, followed immediately by fear that he was going to have to catch him if he fainted.

“Uh, Cas—this is Jamie, an—old friend of Dean’s,” Sam jumped in hastily, and at least it got Jamie’s attention away from Dean, who looked like he was going through a spectacular series of heart attacks, but that wasn’t enough to actually help him beyond that because now he was going from deathly white to an alarming shade of red. “Jamie, this is Cas—he’s, uh, working this job with us,” Sam went on, and every word out of his mouth somehow just sounded like he was waving a big sign telling her _everything_ , even though he knew he wasn’t, and he was trying not to look at Dean but he couldn’t help it and from his apoplectic face, he seemed to feel the same.

Jamie didn’t notice. “Hi,” she said pleasantly, and Cas nodded seriously back, and then turned to Dean waiting his answer about the peanuts.

Okay—Sam knew the standard operating procedure with Dean. Barring that one conversation they’d had back when he’d first started this very strange relationship of his, Sam was just supposed to pretend that nothing was going on as far as Cas was concerned. And Sam played along, he really did—he never said a word, never cracked a joke, just acted like it hadn’t even occurred to him that Dean and Cas were sleeping together. But if he did that now, he was going to have to endure the excruciation of watching his brother have a complete meltdown right here in the middle of the oh-so-perfectly named “Kum’n’Go”.

Or he could break the rules and make the small, tacit acknowledgement that Dean was trapped between an old girlfriend and his current boyfriend and was in dire need of rescuing.

The sight of Dean standing there, his face panicked and mouth working soundlessly as Jamie turned back to him, all smiles, made up Sam’s mind for him.

“Cas,” he said loudly, making Dean jump, “Dean can take care of this stuff—” he grabbed the bags and bottles from his hands and plonked everything on the counter, “—and, uh, I think I found something in the paper today that might be a lead—come on outside and tell me what you think. Nice to see you again, Jamie,” he said, and with that unceremoniously seized the confused former angel by the shirt and hauled him out the door.

The car was, thankfully, parked at the end of the row; they were well out of sight for Dean’s sake, and they were where _they_ couldn’t see _him_ for Sam’s sake. He only let go of Cas once they’d reached it, and then Sam sagged back against the car, letting out a long breath and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Yeah, that hadn’t been horrible or anything.

“Sam?”

He paused halfway in the middle of scrubbing his hand down his face to find Cas looking expectantly at him. “What did you find?” he asked.

Sam blinked, and then remembered the forgotten paper still in his grip. “Oh—I didn’t find anything, Cas,” he said with a snort. “I just needed an excuse to get us out of there.”

Cas looked perplexed. “Why?”

Sam blew out another breath through his nose. Cas had gotten better over the years, but he still had moments where the obvious flew right over his head. “Dean just really didn’t need us in there while he was talking to her,” he said. “He didn’t need _you_ in there while he was talking to her,” he clarified at Cas’s continued confusion.

Okay, maybe that hadn’t clarified anything. Cas was still clearly bewildered, so Sam sighed and said, “Come on, Cas, you know how Dean is—how he doesn’t like to, you know, talk about how you two are— _together_ or anything.”

Cas’s brows knitted. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said earnestly.

Sam gave a tiny chuckle. “Yeah, I know—but trust me, it’s just really uncomfortable to run into an old girlfriend when you’re with the person you’re seeing now.”

Cas looked vaguely surprised by Sam’s words, and turned back towards the door, tilting his head a little in a fruitless effort to peer inside.

“Relax, Cas,” Sam said. “Dean’s just gonna make his excuses, it’s cool—but like I said, he was uncomfortable, and since he doesn’t like to talk about it, he wouldn’t want to have you right there—it’d be too much like having to just outright tell her that he wasn’t gonna go with her ‘cause he was with you now.”

Cas was blinking rapidly, apparently having to work very hard to take all this in, and Sam furrowed his brow when he saw that Cas was starting to look a little upset by whatever connections he was making in that skull of his. “Hey, man—don’t worry. It’s okay,” he reassured him. “Just forget about it—Dean’ll be fine.”

But when the door to the store flew open and Dean came storming out, his face black and his hands empty, Sam realized that maybe he wouldn’t be quite fine.

“Get in the car!” he barked as he stomped by, and he threw himself in the cab and cranked the engine so hard that it ground in protest, and then barely waited until Sam and Cas were inside before he flew out of the parking lot with a squeal of rubber on the asphalt.

* * *

It didn’t get any better. The whole rest of the hunt, Dean had been like that—tense, snappish, prone to flying off the handle and shouting at the slightest provocation. Back at the library he wouldn’t sit with them and had gone off by himself, only showing up to snatch another book from their stack before vanishing again. Later at dinner he’d sat in the corner and brooded and wouldn’t talk to anyone. When it was time to turn in he’d actually slept out in the Impala rather than be in the same room with them. By the second day of getting his head bitten off over nothing, Sam was starting to get royally pissed off—and poor Cas, who was really the one bearing the brunt of it all, was genuinely distressed.

Thank God they’d finally gotten a break in the case. There was another attack only this time there was a survivor, and that meant a witness. There was a kid of about fourteen who’d been out ‘coon hunting in the woods and when he’d passed by the ruined mill, he’d spotted a ghostly white horse standing just by the edge of the pond. It had been skittish, but he’d approached it, and it had finally let him reach out with his finger to stroke it’s nose—and the minute he touched it, he’d found himself stuck to it’s skin, whereupon it had reared and tried to drag him into the lake. It was a gristly piece of fortune that the boy had had his hunting knife with him; stabbing the thing had done no good, and so in a last-ditch act of desperation, he’d actually hacked off his own finger to get away.

And that was all Cas needed to hear. It was handy having someone on their team who’d been around since pretty much the beginning of the world; he had an encyclopedic knowledge of monster MOs, and he pegged that for a kelpie or some other kind of water spirit. It would appear on the banks of the body of water where it would live, using different forms to lure people to touch it, and once they did their hands would fuse to it and it would drag them under to drown. Once they knew that, they just had to dig up how to kill it—beheading with an iron blade—and then dispatch the beast. They’d gone to the pond that night; Sam had played bait while Dean waited in the bushes. When it finally appeared—Sam was treated not to a spectral horse but to a wet, naked hottie—they’d decapitated that bitch with all speed.

Dean had been boisterous and gloating afterwards, like he usually was after a successful hunt, but the adrenaline rush had faded the instant they’d made it back to the car where Cas was waiting. It was late, but Dean had lapsed right back into his previous moody behavior and mulishly insisted that they head back to Bobby’s right then, no matter that their room was paid up until tomorrow. So they’d had to endure an agonizing ride home in the middle of the freaking night, the music blaring so loud that no one could sleep, and if anyone tried to say anything, Dean waspishly told him to shut up.

Sam had never been so relieved to get back to Bobby’s place when they finally rolled in in the wee hours of the morning. Seriously—he was about to grab Dean by the hair and slam him teeth-first into the steering wheel. He stiffly got out of the car and didn’t bother not slamming the door. He saw Cas getting out too, but Dean didn’t. “I’m going into town,” he said gruffly.

“Dean, we just got back, what the hell?” Sam demanded.

“I’m going to town, goddammit!” Dean roared back at him, and then stomped on the gas, flinging dirt all over Sam and Cas both. Sam gave a shout of outrage and ducked fruitlessly against the hail of grit and gravel, but Dean never even slowed down.

Sam angrily shot the finger at the retreating taillights as he straightened and then shook the dust off his shoulders and out of his hair. “Come on, Cas,” he said tightly. “Let’s get inside and get some sleep. Let that bitch have his tantrum.”

Dean didn’t show up again until the next day in the middle of the afternoon. And even then he barely even put in an appearance; he just came in and announced that he was going to work on the car and vanished outside again.

“What the hell got his panties in a twist, anyway?” Bobby asked. The three of them were sitting in the kitchen having a late dinner, and Dean had swept in to grab half a pizza for himself and then swept right back out again. Sam was still pissed and didn’t talk to him, Bobby had clearly figured out that he was PMSing and didn’t even bother trying, and Cas had just been very quiet.

Sam growled under his breath. “Oh, we ran into an old girlfriend of his while we were in Virginia—all three of us,” he added, jerking his head at Cas, whose head came up rather sharply at his words.

Bobby grimaced. “Oh, that had to be fun. And was he all drama-llama like this the whole time, then?”

“Of course,” Sam grunted. “Being a complete asshole to everybody just ‘cause he got put on the spot.”

“Boy needs to get over himself,” Bobby said. “He’s the only one with the problem, here.”

“Tell me about it,” Sam agreed heartily. Trying to lighten the mood a little, he asked, “How the hell do you put up with him, Cas?”

Cas, who had been slumped in his seat and staring at his half-eaten pizza, jumped a little. “I—” he started, but clearly didn’t know what he was supposed to say—or even going to say in the first place—and had just lapsed back into silence. Not long after, he’d quietly stood, thrown away what was left on his plate, and gone upstairs.

Bobby watched him go with a gimlet eye. “I’ll tell you one thing—if that idjit throws Cas into some kind of lovesick tailspin and makes me lose my houseboy, I’m gonna be pissed,” he said, and then stood up to take care of his dish.

Sam just sat where he was, rather confusedly watching Bobby move around the kitchen. It didn’t take him long, though, to set aside his anger at Dean for the moment and look back on the past few days with a more objective eye—and was chagrinned to realize that Bobby was right. Cas had been quieter that usual, even for him, and so he’d been easy for Sam to ignore in order to nurse his own grudge—but when he actually thought about it, it was pretty obvious that Cas was honestly upset.

_Dammit, Dean…_

Great. Dean gets himself all wrapped up in his macho bullshit—and after _eight fucking years_ of being a relationship with another man, that was just rich—and just tramples all over Cas in the process. What a dick—if Sam were Cas, he’d dump his sorry ass right now.

On the heels of his disgust came a sneaking sense of guilt; Sam had admittedly been concentrating on his own annoyance to the point that he’d been sneering about Dean’s tantrums and making cracks about it around Cas, which probably wasn’t helping the situation.

Sam wasn’t worried about his brother; Dean was a putz, but he’d sort himself out like he always did. That was most likely exactly his problem: every other time Sam had seen him get himself worked up over something pertaining to what he seemed to think of as his “being gay,” he’d go off by himself to stew in his own juices for a while and then he’d be fine. Like he was now—only this time they’d been on the job so he hadn’t been able to go off and get his snit out of the way right when it happened and had just gone off on everybody around him instead.

No, Dean would be fine—but God knew what kind of froth Cas was going to work himself into in the interim. He was perhaps the only person on the planet who was actually less in touch with his feelings than Dean himself—although that wasn’t quite fair. Cas didn’t always get it because he’d spent millennia _without_ feelings, and after that eight years with them wasn’t enough time for him to have quite learned the ropes. Dean didn’t have any excuse; he was just an idiot.

 _I suppose I should go check on him._ With a sigh he stood, rinsing and putting away his plate before heading toward the stairs, admittedly dragging his feet a little. He never liked poking his nose into Dean’s personal business like this, and despite not having any kind of problems with his brother’s “lifestyle choices” or whatever, it was doubly the case here when his personal business involved another man. But the other man was Cas, who Sam would consider family even if he weren’t practically a brother-in-law, so once again he’d step in and try to smooth things over for his brother—both of them.

Sam reached the upstairs hallway and crossed to rap his knuckles on Cas’s door. “Cas?” he called.

The door opened. “Hey, Cas, I was just— _oh!_ ”

 _Okay!_ Cas was totally naked! Bare-beam, butt-naked, and standing right there in the open door in front of him. Right—so just because he’d been forbidden to wander around the house in the buff, he didn’t seem to consider that to extend to his own room—and clearly, it hadn’t instilled in him any sense of _shame_ , either.

Half-squinting, half looking away, Sam managed to ask, “I—uh, I just wanted to—to make sure you’re okay?”

Cas didn’t answer, just (nakedly) stood there, looking up with mournful eyes. _Crap._ He wasn’t okay. Holding up a hand to forestall anything he might have been about to say, Sam said, “Can you—can you just, uh, put some clothes on?”

Cas glanced down and then nodded, and then he moved obligingly back into the room. Sam followed, shutting the door behind him and looking anywhere but at Cas as he rummaged in his bureau drawers. Sam made it a point to avoid coming up into this room unless it was absolutely necessary; it was like what Dean did in here with Cas and the all rest of his life outside were separated by a very clear line, and Sam just didn’t belong on this side of it. It was strange; Cas seemed to have zero penchant for collecting possessions (the only exception was the tattered coat that he’d worn when they first met him; it was hanging up in the back of his closet) and was so obsessively tidy about what little he did have that the room hardly seemed to show his presence at all. If anything the few haphazardly scattered things that belonged to his brother that had found their ways in here made it feel more like it was _Dean’s_ room than Cas’s.

The quiet rustling behind him ceased, and Sam risked a glance at Cas to find him standing forlornly in the middle of the room, now thankfully dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Admittedly stalling a little, Sam dragged the chair out from under the desk in the corner and swung it around to sit backwards on it by the bed; after a moment Cas padded across the rug and sank down on the rumpled bed.

Sam raked his hair back and tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to say. Something like, _Don’t worry, Cas, Dean just needed to go wrestle with his heterosexuality for a while, he’ll be fine?_ Or maybe, _I’m sorry I was making fun of things earlier—I didn’t know Dean always turned into such a total bitch with you when he had to admit he was banging a guy._ Yeah—that’d help.

Cas was starting at his knobby knees, picking morosely at a scab, a habit of his that Dean had fussed about before but apparently hadn’t broken him of. Sam had been about to bite the bullet and just say something when out of nowhere Cas quietly asked, “Did Dean want to go with that woman?”

Sam blinked.

_What?_

Cas wasn’t looking at him; he was still deliberately tearing away at the scab on his knee, a drop of dark blood welling up beneath his nails.

Cas was—Cas was upset about _Jamie_? Was—was he—?

“Cas,” Sam said slowly, tilting his head down to be able to peer up at his downturned face. “You don’t need to be _jealous_.”

Cas still wasn’t looking at him. “I’m not jealous,” he said after a moment, rubbing the blood away on his skin.

Sam felt himself smiling a little in spite of himself. “Cas—you don’t need to worry about _that_ ,” he said firmly. “Dean—Dean’s not going to _cheat_ on your or something. He—the last time he messed around on anybody, he was eighteen. He doesn’t do that—he’s a good guy, and he’s happy with you, and he’s just not gonna. I should know,” he added. “I’m the one always out on the road with him, and he doesn’t pick up girls anymore, now that he’s with you.”

“But he still wants to.” Sam looked up, and Cas finally did as well. “He is still interested in women he meets,” he said.

Sam screwed up his face. “Well, come on, Cas, he’s not _dead_ ,” he said, incredulous. “Just because you two are together, you can’t expect him not to even _look_ at girls anymore.”

“Dean can do whatever he wants,” Cas said immediately, but then he looked away. “I just wasn’t aware that he did.”

Sam snorted. “Dude, come on—everyone looks. What, when you look it doesn’t occur to you that Dean looks too?”

Cas looked back at him with an odd expression of puzzled gloom. “I don’t look,” he said, sounding a bit confused.

Sam stared. “What?” he asked stupidly. “What, like—not at all? Not at anyone?”

“No.”

Okay, this was moving out of the realm of simple relationship advice and more into the realm of “Cas was freaking weird and what the hell was he supposed to do with him.” Sam rubbed his forehead, and then tried again. “Okay, fine—you don’t look,” he conceded. “But you are—or were—an angel, so it’s not quite the same. Dean’s human, and humans look. We pretty much all do, even if we’re with someone—it’s, I dunno, instinct, or Freud, or whatever you want to call it. Humans think about sex all the time, so we _look_.” He gave Cas a reassuring look. “Point is, it doesn’t _mean_ anything.”

Cas was just looking at him, still with those sad eyes, and Sam sighed explosively. “Cas, seriously—this is nothing to get all worked up about. And it’s not fair to Dean,” he said in a moment of inspiration, and that, at least, did seem to get Cas’s attention. “Dean was—well, he was always kinda slutty,” he admitted, “and he was always a flirt and liked the girls—but that doesn’t matter anymore.” He tried to make Cas understand. “No matter how many girls he looks at or how many come on to him, he’s—he’s _faithful_.”

“I know he is—but—” Cas wrapped his arms around himself and looked away. “He is, but it makes him unhappy. He still wants women but he won’t allow himself just because of me…I’m not enough for him. It’s my fault that he can’t—”

 _What? Oh,_ crap _, no. No, no, no, back that truck up._ “Cas, no,” Sam said forcefully. “That’s crap—he doesn’t want women, he—he just wants _you_. Didn’t you hear what I’ve been saying?” he demanded, grabbing Cas by the shoulder and making him look at him. “That stuff doesn’t _mean_ anything—if he wanted women, believe me, he’d get them, but he _doesn’t_. You are more than enough for him—and he’s very happy with you.”

“But—he was so angry with me when he met that woman in the gas station—”

“ _No_ , Cas,” Sam said again, punctuating his words with a small shake. “He wasn’t mad at you, he was just— _mad._ ” Jesus, Dean had really taken a great big dump over everything this time. Of course—when he went off by himself to sulk, he was _off by himself_. Cas—Cas had probably never had to deal with Dean when he had sand all in his vagina about screwing a guy. “Look, you know Dean has issues with you being—with you being in a male body, and all. We talked about this, remember?” At Cas’s uncertain nod, he went on. “That’s all that was. He was there, face to face with a girl from back before when he was all the ladies man and everything, and then you showed up and it was just him having a freak-out trying to deal with physically liking women but—but _loving_ you like that—that’s all. He wasn’t mad at you, and he’ll get over it.”

Cas had listened, and Sam held his breath, hoping, and he saw something like understanding in his eyes—but then Cas turned away, pulling away from Sam’s hand on his shoulder and folding in on himself again. “I knew he was uncomfortable with how he felt about me, but…” he trailed off, and when he spoke next, his voice was soft, sorrowful. “I’ve done this to him. I…I should have taken a female vessel…or I never should have—”

 _Aw, shit!_ “Cas, _don’t_ ,” Sam commanded. “Don’t even start that bullshit.”

Cas turned to him, and his eyes were bright. “Would Dean be happier with a woman?” he asked—no, he _demanded_ , and god _dammit_ , how the hell was Sam supposed to answer that? Yes, Dean would have been happier if he didn’t have to worry about being queer or whatever his problem was, but that wasn’t the point!

So Sam sucked in a breath, looked Cas in the eye, and told him the only truth he could: “No, Cas—because he doesn’t want ‘a woman’; he just wants _you_.”

Cas stared at him for a moment, but this his head dropped and he turned away again. Well, that hadn’t been as reassuring as he’d wanted it to be. _Dammit, Dean!_ Running a hand over his face, Sam struggled to figure out something, anything to say that might get through to him right now.

“Cas,” he began again, injecting as much force into his voice as he could, “Dean wants _you_. He is happy with _you_. He’s only been in a couple of serious relationships before, but the one he’s got with you—Cas, this is the longest he’s ever been with _anyone_. Hell, when he was younger he was lucky to make a relationship last longer than eight _days_ , let alone the _eight years_ he’s had with you. That right there should tell you just how happy you make him.”

Cas had looked up again, and Sam felt some small glimmer of hope in that he could tell he _wanted_ to believe it—but then he just licked his lips and looked back down into his lap.

Sam gave a half-sigh, half-grunt. Right. Cas always listened to what Sam said and he did what Bobby told him, but when it came down to it there had only ever been one person who could really reach him. Too bad that person was a _jackass_.

Sam put a reassuring hand on his shoulder; it was still strange to feel him so small and warm beneath his hand, flexible and human instead of cold and angelically immobile. “Cas, you don’t need to worry about this. Dean will be fine. He _is_ happy. But working yourself up like this _will_ upset him.” Cas blinked at him, and Sam gave him a small, tired smile. “You should get some rest. Things will be okay.”

Cas just watched him stand with doleful eyes, and Sam sighed again, giving his shoulder a squeeze but knowing that he hadn’t done him any good; he’d gotten it in his head that he wasn’t good enough for Dean, and only Dean was going to be able to talk him out of it.

Sam opened the door and went out into the hall, turning to look behind him, and saw that Cas hadn’t moved. He was just sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at his knees, and Sam shook his head as he closed the door.

What the hell had happened to his life that just whacking monsters had started to look like the _easier_ option? You just blew their heads off—you didn’t have to sit down and try to talk to them about how they were feeling and listen to them tell you that they only wanted to be a real boy. _Or a real girl_ , he thought painedly, stumping down the stairs.

The library was empty, and he could see through into the kitchen that the table was unoccupied, the remnants of their dinner packed away. Sam meandered in and opened the fridge, cadging himself a slice of cold pizza from the box before slumping tiredly down into one of the kitchen chairs.

There was a creak and a bang, and Sam looked up from his half-gnawed pizza at the sound of the slamming door to see Dean come swaggering in. He marched across the floor, all traces of his funk gone, once again the king of all he surveyed. He gave Sam an easy grin and a twiddling little salute with the candy bar in his hand before heading straight for the fridge. He ducked down inside and reappeared with a beer in hand, holding his candy in his teeth as he twisted off the cap before taking another look at Sam, who was glowering at him from where he sat.

“Dude,” he said around the candy in his mouth, “what’s your problem?”

Sam just stared at him. Stared at Dean, standing there, all smug and full of shit once more, his Nutrageous poking out of his smirking mouth, acting like he hadn’t just spent the past three days being a huge cock to everybody and didn’t have a care in the world.

And that was it.

As Dean chewed noisily and took a big swig of his beer, Sam loudly said, “Go talk to your _boyfriend_.”

Huh—Sam was impressed. Outside of the movies, he’d never seen such a perfectly executed spittake.

Dean spewed beer and bits of peanut all over the floor, hacking and coughing before his head came up in outraged disbelief, and Sam watched as his face went through ten different shades of purple as he tried and failed to think of anything to say before he finally managing a stuttered, cracking, “What the _fuck_ , Sam?!”

Sam was unmoved. “You heard me,” he said, his voice clipped. “You’ve been a total douchebag for the past three days, and now is Cas up there having an identity crisis because of it.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Dean growled, refusing to meet his gaze and instead concentrating on using his eyes to burn a hole in the shoulder of Sam’s shirt.

Sam pursed his lips. “He thinks he’s not good enough for you ‘cause he doesn’t have a vagina.”

Dean’s head snapped up. “Oh, Jesus, is he starting _that_ shit again?!” he demanded, and Sam could tell that he hadn’t meant to, because the minute the words were out of Dean’s mouth, his face turned very dark red and he wouldn’t look at him anymore.

Sam just went with it. “Yeah, he is. And I got to go up there and try to talk him down for you—now it’s your turn.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do about it?” Dean snarled at the wall behind Sam. “It’s not my fault that idiot gets himself all worked up over stupid crap like that!”

“ _Not your fault?_ ” Sam repeated in disbelief. “How the fuck is it not your fault that you threw a complete tantrum over seeing some old girlfriend with Cas right there and then turned around and treated him like shit to the point that now he’s up in his room thinking you’d be better off without him?” Dean’s jaw was working but no sound was coming out. Sam stabbed a finger in his chest to punctuate his next words, and Dean slapped him furiously away. “Now,” Sam said sharply anyway, “this is _your_ mess, and he’s _your_ boyfriend, so _you_ can go deal with it!”

“ _Stop fucking calling him that!_ ” Dean roared.

Sam gave his brother a look of deep disgust. Cas was up there wallowing in misery, and all he could think about was that the word “boyfriend” was offending his delicate sensibilities? “Okay, fine, then,” he sneered. “Your ‘ _forever-buddy_ ’.”

Dean swung around, his face an ugly puce color and contorted with rage, his eyes wide and his fists clenching. Okay, Sam might have pushed him to his limit. “Dean—come on,” he said seriously, holding out his hands. “It’s—you’ve managed to—to keep this going for eight years, and honestly? You’re about as stable and comfortable and _happy_ as I’ve ever seen you.”

The fight may have mostly gone out of him, but Dean wouldn’t look at him now; he’d turned his back to him, and his shoulders were tight. “Don’t screw this up,” Sam said, his voice earnest. “Just go talk to him.”

Dean didn’t speak, just stood, quivering and looking at the floor—until he suddenly moved, striding angrily towards the door outside. Sam’s frustration welled up and he started, “Dean, _dammit_ —”

“I gotta put my tools away, you nagging bitch!” Dean barked behind him. “I—I’ll be back in a minute.” And with that he stomped outside, slamming the door hard enough to make the roof rattle.

Sam stared after him before he just slumped where he stood, exhausted. He was getting too old for this kind of drama—and Dean was _already_ too old for it. But he was pretty sure Dean was gonna go talk to Cas, at least, and that was what was important. For both of them.

Tiredly scrubbing his hand over his face, he plodded back to the table to pick up his forgotten slice of pizza and go back to munching on it. He looked up at a crashing sound outside—yeah, Dean was pissed. But he’d live.

He also probably wouldn’t want to see Sam when he came back in, though (and Sam didn’t particularly want to see him right now, either), so Sam obliged him and made his way over to the stairwell and headed down to the basement. The light was on, and sure enough he found Bobby sitting at the table in the panic room, a book in hand and an open bottle next to him (as well as the box of tissues he’d been carting around while he fought off the last of his cold).

He raised an eyebrow when Sam slouched over and grabbed one of the used glasses on the table and helped himself to his whiskey. “I need a drink,” Sam said unnecessarily and polished off the crust of his pizza before tipping back.

“The storm blown over?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam said. “Or it will be soon, I hope.” He dropped unceremoniously down on the cot in the middle of the room, setting his glass on the floor beside him. “I don’t think I could take another round of playing Marriage Counselor tonight.”

Bobby gave a chuff of amusement. “Yeah, but if you need to, you’ll do it anyway—you’re a sucker like that,” he remarked easily.

Sam, who had been rubbing the corners of his eyes with his fingers, halted where he was. Something about Bobby’s tone gave him pause, and he dropped his hand just in time to see Bobby going back to his book—but not before Sam saw the satisfied look on his face.

He felt his mouth tighten involuntarily. “You bastard,” he said flatly. “You set me up.”

Bobby tossed him an infuriatingly amused look. “Like I said: I didn’t want to lose my houseboy—and you’re a sucker. ‘Sides,” he added, going back to his book, “I’ve done my time in that barrel already.”

Sam wrinkled his nose in confusion. “You what?”

“You think this is the first time Cas has had himself a grand mal pity-party ‘cause he thinks Dean can do no wrong and goes into his ‘I’m not worthy’ routine?” Bobby asked wryly. “You two are off on the road—I _live_ with the little runt. He gets in one of his sulks, doesn’t come out of it on his own, so he needs a swift kick in the ass. And there’s no one around but me…” And he shrugged.

Sam stared for a moment longer before closing his eyes and shaking his head, snorting in amusement as he swung his legs up to lie back on the cot with a sigh.

So. Sam hadn’t been the only one paving the way to make sure things worked out for Dean—Bobby had taken his turn too. Dean had no excuses, then. Other than having his head up his ass. Well—now Dean could just pull it out and take _his_ turn.

 _About damned time_ , Sam grumbled to himself as he reached down for his glass and finished off his whiskey. _Jerk._


	2. Holy Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean confronts Cas, and Cas’s solution to their problems leaves Dean reeling and forces him to confront a few truths of his own.

_October 22, 2020_

Dean hated nosy people.

He’d had to deal with plenty of them in his line of work. Landlords who asked too many questions and wanted to know way more than they were legally allowed to know about their tenant, whether they were alive _or_ dead, when Dean came in posing as a repairman or a cop. Neighbors who wanted juicy news about why the _Feds_ would be visiting the guy next door. Idiots who fancied themselves amateur cops who wanted to know if this was some kind of “moddiss operatine”, as one moron with glasses had asked him who had heard about the similar murder one town over.

However, what _really_ hated were nosy people that nosed in his _personal business_. People who started asking him about his parents, or his brother, or why he refused to eat breakfast burritos anymore (you wouldn’t eat them, either, if you found a roach in one _after_ you bit it in half).

But what he hated most of all was when his nasty bitch of a brother started sticking his pointy nose in Dean’s business that involved _Cas_!

Dean’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of the Impala to the point that his knuckles turned white, and he fumed at the dashboard.

That—he’d—that son of a bitch had had another stupid _heart-to-heart_ about him with Cas! Dean had told Cas to keep his goddamn mouth shut, _and_ he’d told Sam he could keep his fucking girly opinions to himself! And now they were both getting together behind his back _to talk about Dean_! What the hell had Cas told Sam up there to make Sam think that—that it was okay to call Cas—call Cas _that_ , what he’d called him?! Jesus. He could hardly even think the word.

_Boyfriend._ He felt himself snarling. He did _not_ have a boyfriend, goddammit! He didn’t know what the fuck Cas was, but he was _not_ his—his fucking _boyfriend_!

He both did and didn’t want to know what Sam and Cas had talked about upstairs ( _Probably over cookie dough ice cream and_ Steel Magnolias, he thought viciously). He wanted to know so he’d know exactly what he was going to be taking out of Sam’s ass later, but at the same time, he _so didn’t want to know_. God knew what they’d been up there gossiping and weeping about—if it was something that made Sam call Cas his—

Sam was gonna pay for this. Dean had already determined that much—that little shit was going to _pay_.

Not that Cas was gonna get off light. Oh no, he was definitely gonna get it, too. He had _told_ Cas to stop thinking a bunch of crap about how he needed to be a woman _years_ ago. And since when did he start getting huffy and sulky just because Dean had an innocent talk and flirting session with an old hookup?! _That_ sure sounded like something a woman would do— _What do you know, Cas, you can be a big ol’ girl just fine!_ Going into some kind of jealous funk, and then going into a _pout_ because Dean got _justifiably_ mad about the kind of shit like what had happened a few days ago? Jesus Christ, that had been horrible…

He sighed. He was putting it off and he knew it. And sitting out here in the car quietly ranting to himself about it was _nice_ and all, but the longer the sat out here the more chances there were that when he went back inside, there would be Sam and he would give him that Little Mouth Look, and Dean would just have to hit him. Or worse, he’d go in and find Cas and Sam sobbing on each other on the couch while watching Lifetime—and talking about him again. No, he was gonna go inside, go upstairs, and say what needed to be said: he was going to tell Cas he didn’t have a pussy, that he didn’t _need_ to have a pussy, but he definitely needed to stop _acting_ like a pussy because that wasn’t going to make him magically grow one, either.

Heaving another sigh, he kicked open the door and got out of the car, not bothering to deny to himself that he was dragging his feet as he flicked off the floodlight as he went inside. He did _not_ want to do this. God knew what ideas Sam had put into Cas’s head and what bullshit Cas was gonna blubber at him. When either Sam or Cas started talking feelings, it was never good, and here Dean was going to have to deal with their powers combined. Bitches.

Dean was glad Sam wasn’t at the kitchen table anymore (but sorry he didn’t have a chance to sock him in the jaw on his way upstairs), and he didn’t give into his immediate inclination to grab a beer (or better yet, a whiskey) on his way up. Instead, he didn’t take any detours, just headed right on up, muttering obscenities under his breath as he went, and he couldn’t help but pause when he reached Cas’s closed door.

This wasn’t fair.

He hated how he shuffled out there in the hall for at least thirty seconds, probably looking like an idiot, but _dammit_ , he didn’t want to _do_ this! _Just knock and go in_ , Dean insisted firmly. _Just get it over with._ In the end, he decided to skip the knocking and just went in.

_Shit._ There he was, staring dully at the floor. He didn’t even look up when Dean walked in. Dammit, he was in a real funk this time. _Thanks, Sam. Really. Work him up so he starts getting fucking_ depressed _again and then dump him on me._

He had zero interest in having this conversation at all, but he had _negative_ interest in drawing it out by having a prolonged “let’s stare at opposite walls until somebody finally breaks this horrible silence” moment. So, huffing irritably, he just started right in.

“I know you talked with Sam,” he said bluntly. Cas finally looked at him, looking more pitiful than Bambi, and Dean ignored that. “You think we need to talk. Fine. So let’s talk. _What_ is your problem?”

Cas just stared at him for a moment, and Dean was very alarmed to see just how much distress was on his face. What the hell was wrong with him?

But resolve was fast on the heels of the worry, and Dean saw the familiar set of his jaw that he knew would precede something he really didn’t want to hear, and Cas did not disappoint. “You’re not interested in other men,” he stated. “You want women.”

_Oh, fuck._ Of all the things Cas could’ve opened with, he picked that one. The one where Dean couldn’t honestly answer because Cas _didn’t get it_ and would take the truth _all wrong_.

Dean glared at him, thinking fast so he could try and evade the not-question. “I think I have a right to look at women,” he ground out. “I wouldn’t bitch at you if you wanted to scope out chicks.” After a moment, he forced himself to add, “Or other dudes.”

Cas’s stare didn’t waver. “But you don’t look at men.”

Shit. Only answer to that one would be an outright lie, and he wasn’t going to lie to him—he couldn’t. “No,” he replied grudgingly.

There went the cow eyes. “Then why are you…with me?”

Dean ground his teeth. _You are such an ass, Cas._ “Well, I don’t remember you ever being—being ‘some dude’,” Dean blustered. “You’re—you. It’s different.”

“It isn’t,” Cas insisted. “I remember—I remember when both you and Sam made it clear that I was now a man.” His eyes were piercing. “I’m a man, Dean.”

_I fucking_ know _that, would you_ stop _that?!_ Dean mentally snarled.

“And…you don’t _want_ men.” Cas finally dropped his gaze, turning away. “You aren’t happy with me.”

“Cut it out,” Dean snapped. “When have I ever told you somethin’ like that?”

Cas looked at him again, and Dean glared right back at the pissiness he saw surfacing there. “You never would have become that upset when you met that woman again—”

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Dean interrupted loudly. “It’s _always_ awkward to—to have a situation like that! Old exes meeting—” Dean paused, because he had no clue what to call Cas.

Cas, unfortunately, just took advantage of the silence. “Would you have been so angry if I’d been a woman?” he demanded.

Dean pursed his lips. “It’s _different_ with you ‘cause—shit, Cas, that had—that’d never happened before! You _know_ there are still things that— _happen_ with you where I have to—to get used to it! I just—what, you want me to beg for forgiveness for being uptight about it?!” Dean growled.

Cas looked at the floor, the determination giving way to pitiful again. “You shouldn’t have to,” he murmured. “Dean…you aren’t happy with me.”

“I told you to _stop_ that,” Dean snarled. “I—dammit, I’m _fine_. I _am_ —happy. With you.”

“You aren’t as happy as you could be.” The overbright blue eyes were back. “As you… _should_ be. I can’t do that for you.” Cas’s fingers were curling restlessly as the blankets beneath them. “Why—why have you let this go on like this if you…don’t want men?”

Jesus Fucking Christ, what had Sam been telling him up here?! This was _ridiculous_! They had had this out _years_ ago! He’d _told_ him he didn’t want him to be a woman, he’d _told_ him they were—just gonna do their thing and leave it alone, _he knew all this_! But no, here he was, backsliding to that night when all this crap had started in the first place, where he’d told Dean he would’ve gone angelic tranny for him if he’d have known that some day they would embark on this bizarre whatever-it-was that was undoubtedly the weirdest thing Dean had ever encountered, and he’d seen a giant talking teddy bear that seriously needed some Paxil.

Dean started pacing, his fingers tightly wound behind his neck; he could feel the beginnings of a headache poking behind his eyelids. Why, oh why, did Dean have to wind up with someone so _stupid_?

“Cas,” he started slowly, “I like women. I’m…not going to bother denying it. You _know_ I like women. You’ve _always_ known I like women. It’s just a fact of life that _I can’t fucking help_. But— _you’re different._ You’re…just _you_. Or here—how about—” He dragged a hand across his face, trying not to stumble over the words. “How about you try to see it like this? No, I don’t…look at other guys. I never have—but—” He licked his lips. “You’re the _only one_ I…do…look at. I—I make an _exception_ for you— _just_ you. Surely you—please tell me you—have _some_ idea what that means?” He hated that there was a note of pleading in his voice by the end of that, but _anything_ at this point to get through his thick skull.

Would wonders never cease—it looked like he _might_ have gotten through to him a bit. Cas was looking less sorrowful and more pouty now, so Dean pressed that advantage and started back up before Cas could open his mouth again. “Cas, I’m not…I don’t look at women or talk with old girlfriends ‘cause I’m— _unhappy_ or some shit. You just gotta understand—just because you’re nuts and don’t look doesn’t mean I don’t. I’m—I’m _happy_ with—what we do, it’s just…women are hot.”

“That’s what Sam said,” Cas muttered, picking at his knee.

Dean absently reached down and slapped his hand away from his scab. “Well, Sam was right,” Dean said. “For once. Just because I’m… _with_ you doesn’t mean I’m going to magically stop liking chicks and boobs and real sex.”

And just like that, Dean could only watch in horror as any and all progress he may or may not have been making flew right out the window as Cas’s head shot up, his eyes wide and shocked and worst of all _hurt_ , his mouth hanging open a bit, and Dean had just one second to realize that maybe that _hadn’t_ been the best thing to say before Cas was on his feet and stiffly walking away from him to stand by the window.

Dean stared at his rigid back, trying to get his throat unstuck. “Cas, I didn’t—come on, you know what I meant—”

That was a stupid thing to say, too, because he _didn’t_ know what Dean meant. Well, wasn’t this just _fucking wonderful_ , things were _really_ FUBAR now, and was there a certain giant somebody who was going to wake up with black teeth because his clever older brother had poured ink in his mouth while he slept, yes there _was_. _God_ dammit _, Sam!_ See? _See?!_ _This_ was why he didn’t want that prick to mess around in his business, particularly _this_ business—because shit like _this_ happened!

“Cas, look—” he started again.

“Don’t.” Dean stopped short at his sharp tone. “You’ve told me to stop quite enough—now I think you need to.”

Dean huffed in aggravation, throwing his hands up and stalking to the opposite side of the room, feeling stupid and angry and embarrassed and now also feeling like a dick because fine, that had been a poor choice of words, but fucking hell, it _wasn’t_ real sex! It was…whatever they did! And whatever they did was _weird_! That didn’t mean he didn’t _enjoy_ it or anything, dammit!

“This…has gone on long enough, then,” Cas started, and Dean glanced warily over his shoulder. Cas still wasn’t facing him, but Dean could tell he was making a great effort to keep his voice under control. “We don’t…feel the same way about this.”

_Yeah—I’m not an overly-sensitive bitch about everything_ , Dean glowered at the wall.

Cas took a few breaths. “I—you haven’t—this isn’t what you wanted. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“So, that’s what you think of me, then?” Dean growled at the table next to him. “That I’ve just been faking it this whole time for shits and giggles?”

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing. All I know is what I’ve been doing. I’ve been…selfish. I’ve been keeping you from what you really want.”

_Rub it in, why don’t you, that I said that asshole line_ , Dean growled to himself. _That’s not what I fucking meant!_

But Cas was still talking. “I just…I can’t be what you want, Dean. And…this isn’t right. I can’t make you happy the way a woman would, so I can’t…keep you like this.”

_Wait—what?_

Dean was staring blankly at the table now, somewhat frozen as he struggled to process what Cas was saying, what Cas had _been_ saying, the way he was sounding a little shaky and—he wasn’t…he seriously was _not_ —

“All I want is for you to be happy. Not…whatever it is you feel with me, because it’s not enough. It’s…it’s been eight years. I understand things now and can get by…on my own. I—”

Cas was taking a breath as Dean struggled to fight against the shot of ice that had just gone down his spine as he finally realized what was happening.

“I should go.”

It was a very unpleasant two seconds. First Dean felt horribly cold all over, despite the way his palms were starting to sweat. Then came the feeling sick part—the way his gut twisted horribly. And the fact that it was all so sudden and the way it slammed him, he supposed going a little dizzy was only natural.

But after that it was almost a relief to feel the swell of heat from the sudden anger that exploded in him, because this was not happening, _this was not_ —

“No.” Dean whirled, stomping over to where Cas was still standing, and Cas was halfway through turning around when Dean reached him so he just swung his hand up and yanked him around the rest of the way to save time. “ _No_ ,” he snarled again. “You hear me? You are _not_ gonna pull that Peter Parker shit on me over this, you son of a bitch, this— _you are not doing this to me!_ ”

Dean’s grip on his shoulder was tight, and he could see the reference just sailed right over his head, but Cas jaw was still set despite the very clear agony in his eyes. “You—you’re not _leaving_ for what you think is my own good! You know why?! Because I think _I_ know what is for my own good better than _you_ fucking do! Last I checked, _you aren’t me_!” Dean barked, shaking him now.

Cas jerked out of Dean’s grip. “ _Do_ you know?” he growled back at him. “How can you be so sure of that when you’ve refused the company of women for eight years when _they_ are what you want?”

“ _Because I’m with you!_ ” Dean shouted.

“ _Why?_ ” Cas demanded right back. “You don’t want men! You never have! Why would you spend _eight years_ with someone who can’t make you happy?”

“I don’t fucking _care_ that you’re a guy, goddammit!” Dean yelled, and so help him if Cas tried to call him a liar on that he’d punch him in the mouth—and fuck that bastard, he looked like he was about to. “ _I don’t care!_ I don’t fucking _want_ some random chick,” he ranted, and it burst out of him before he could even think about what he was saying, “and I don’t screw around on girlfriends, so I’m certainly not gonna screw around on _boyfriends_ , either, especially when I’ve been with ‘em for _eight fucking years_!”

“You don’t want a _boy_ friend, Dean—” Cas started angrily.

He didn’t get any further because Dean just reached out and grabbed him again, both hands on his shoulders, fingers tight so he couldn’t wriggle out of his grip this time. “You’re right,” Dean growled. “I don’t. And I don’t fucking want a _girlfriend_ , either—because she wouldn’t be _you_. Goddammit, Cas, it’s _you_ I just—”

He couldn’t seem to stop it now. “I’ve _never_ been with anyone this long, I’ve never—never been _happier_ with someone, never felt—felt like _this_ —”

He hated how he was stumbling over the words even as they refused to stop spilling out of him, his chest horribly tight. “Cas, you _can’t_ do that to me, I don’t _want_ anybody else, because you—you’re—goddammit, I _love_ you, and you _know_ I love you, and you know it doesn’t fucking matter that you’re a guy _because I fucking love you!_ ”

Cas may have been opening his mouth to speak, but if he managed to Dean didn’t hear it over the loud thump they made when Cas’s back hit the wall so hard it rattled the picture hanging on it and Dean was yanking Cas’s head back and kissing him way too hard but he didn’t care, didn’t care that he could taste blood, and Cas’s arms were wrapped around him and gripping his shoulders with bruising force as Dean held him tightly to him. He pinned him to the wall, breathing heavily, kissing him over and over and refusing to let go because no, Cas was not leaving him, Cas could _not_ leave him, he’d lost so many people and he wasn’t going to lose him too, not like this—

Cas was kissing him back with matched ferocity, panting when he had a chance to take a breath, and he didn’t seem inclined to let Dean go, either, his fingers digging into Dean’s shoulder blades. “Dean—” he managed to gasp before Dean was forcefully kissing him again, tasting the inside of his mouth as he grabbed a handful of Cas’s hair, his other arm low around his waist and keeping him tight against him, and Cas was _not_ going to leave him, he was not going to leave him because Dean was not going to _let_ him, he _couldn’t_ , because he knew he didn’t just want Cas, he just—he _needed_ him, after eight years he couldn’t take losing him like that.

He finally tore away from Cas’s mouth, burying his face in his neck and just trying to breathe again, keeping his face hidden because he could feel a familiar sting behind his eyes and he was not gonna do that, especially not in front of Cas. Cas clung back, his fingers knotted in Dean’s shirt, his breath coming in quick little pants.

Dean was, as usual, awesome, and quickly managed to get himself under control to the point that he was confident he would be able to talk without his voice cracking, even if he did keep his face where it was. “Now—stop being such a fucking dipshit, Cas,” he muttered, his voice muffled against Cas’s throat. “I _am_ happy with you. Scout’s honor.”

Cas’s arms tightened around him, and he shifted a bit so that his cheek was resting against Dean’s shoulder. Dean kept his own face where it was, and he could feel Cas’s thudding pulse against his cheek.

Neither of them made any attempt to move from where they were, and Dean was fine with that. Leaning against Cas, enjoying the sensation of Cas breathing against him, warm and soft…and his. Still his. Still his…

Still his _significant other_. Still his fucking _boyfriend_. Because Dean was… _obscenely_ in love with the little bastard. There was no point in playing coy or pretending it was nothing and dancing around the words now. Plus, he was too tired, too…too _everything_ to even put in an effort into that tonight.

Cas was his boyfriend. And he loved him.

Goddammit.

_Fuck. Fuck everything. Especially Sam_ , he thought peevishly to himself as he stroked up and down Cas’s spine. _Just fuck him in the ear._ Ink was the _least_ of Sam’s worries now. Wouldn’t he be surprised to find a tarantula in his bag. And Sam liked to pretend he wasn’t afraid of snakes, but Dean knew better—oh, the things he could do with a well-placed bull snake. And how about some laxative-laced coffee for him in the morning, along with some peroxide in his shampoo? That’d be nice.

Mmm—he’d plot revenge later. He really didn’t want to think about his brother right now anyway, not with Cas like he was, all pressed up against him, chest rising and falling evenly. Unable to help it, he nuzzled Cas’s neck a little, softly kissing the familiar pulse point, and couldn’t help the dry thought that for all he called what they had weird…it hardly ever _felt_ weird anymore. Sure, it…had its moments, especially when he thought too hard about it, but…really, he just didn’t much care anymore. It was Cas. And…he _was_ happy with him.

His hand rested against the small of Cas’s back, his fingertips pressed against his flesh where Cas’s shirt had ridden up. After all these years—even longer than he’d ever known him as an angel—it still always struck him how hot Cas was all the time, seeing as how before he’d always been cold. Pulling back, he rubbed his cheek against Cas’s hair and moved his free hand to turn Cas’s face to him, and he saw the suspiciously shiny blue eyes as Cas leaned a little against his palm, and Dean felt his own eyes drift shut as he leaned forward and kissed him again, gently this time, stroking his thumb against Cas’s cheekbone.

“Seriously,” he murmured against Cas’s mouth. “I meant it. All of it.”

There was a pause. “I know,” Cas whispered back, and Dean didn’t object when Cas closed the short distance this time, his palm against Dean’s throat.

Abruptly, Dean realized that he was tired— _dog_ tired, all the sudden, and he stopped leaning against Cas and enjoying the feather-light way Cas’s fingers kept sliding across his neck and his face, straightening and trailing his own hands up Cas’s arms to grab his wrists. He led Cas to the bed and nudged him down on it, sitting down next to him to kick off his shoes. He didn’t bother getting out of his pants because it was too much work and instead just slid back to flop down on the pillows and took Cas with him.

He would’ve been happy to sit like this, on his side facing Cas with one hand resting on his hip, until Cas fell asleep, but he figured there was…one more thing that needed to be said. And this one was definitely all on him.

“Cas,” he started haltingly, staring at a point over Cas’s shoulder as Cas just looked right at him, “I’m…I’m sorry, okay? Not—not for what happened back on the hunt. Well, okay, fine, I shouldn’t have gotten all mad at you, it wasn’t your fault. But—look, I did _not_ mean that what—what I said before, I wasn’t saying what…what we do is _fake_ or something. That’s not what I meant _at all_.” He forced himself to look Cas in the eye. “But it was a…dick thing to say. To put it like that, anyway. And I’m sorry about it. Seriously.”

Cas stared at him for a second or two, but then he nodded, blinking a little. “What I _meant_ was,” Dean continued, “that I miss…you know, sex, like with women. Don’t get me wrong,” he added hurriedly, “what—what you…do is…it’s…” He sighed explosively, and then just said it. “Cas, there is _no one_ on the planet who can…do what you do like that. You—you’re _awesome_ in bed, and I…really, _really_ enjoy it. But, you know…there’s no sex. _Sex_ sex. You know.”

Amazingly enough, Cas _did_ seem to know. He nodded again. “Intercourse,” he said.

Dean wrinkled his nose; Cas was so damned _clinical_ about things, and it really just made things even more uncomfortable than they already were. But at least he got the point. “Yeah,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “ _Intercourse._ It’s nice—you wouldn’t understand ‘cause you’ve never had it. But I have—had it _a lot_ —and, well, I kind of miss it sometimes. That’s all I meant, okay?”

“I understand, Dean,” Cas replied quietly. “I wish you would have mentioned this sooner, if it was a problem. If that’s what you want, we can. I don’t mind.”

Dean snorted. “Uh, no,” he said dryly, “you said it yourself, dude, you’re a _man_.”

Cas just stared at him, looking confused. “I know. And if you—”

“Last I checked,” Dean interrupted him loudly, “you need a slot B for tab A, and you—” Dean stopped short, his mouth still hanging open mid-sentence as his sluggish brain finally connected the dots. “Wait. Are you—are you seriously talking about what I think you’re talking about?” Dean demanded.

Cas was looking both shameless and clueless at the same time. “I know it is possible and enjoyable for men to engage in—”

“ _No!_ ” Dean yelled, barely noticing his voice cracked. “No, you stop right there, do _not_ finish that sentence!”

Cas frowned, drawing his eyebrows together which always meant he was going to keep fucking _talking_ and sure enough there he went, insistently saying, “I don’t understand, Dean; if it’s something you enjoy, then I want to—”

“I’m not doin’ you in the butt!” Dean blurted out. “Don’t you dare even _think_ about that again, ‘cause that’s fucking gay and I don’t do that shit so it’s _not happening_!”

Cas cut his eyes to the side and goddammit, he was starting to look pitiful again; Dean huffed tiredly, rubbing the corners of his eyes. “Cas, you—come here,” he sighed, reaching out and curling his arms around him, drawing him right up against him. “Look, if I really wanted that from you, I—I would have _asked_ about it, okay? Notice that I’ve never asked. There’s a _reason_ for that. I _told_ you—I’m happy with—what we do. It—giving that up is—is _worth_ it—for you. I don’t need that. I just need…you.” God, _he_ was the one who was gonna grow a pussy now.

Cas was picking at the collar of Dean’s shirt. “I don’t want you to have to sacrifice anything for me,” he murmured.

Dean scowled. “What, ‘cause you’re the only one allowed to be selfless here? Screw that. Cas, it—look, what I’m saying here is that so long as I—I have _you_ , I don’t _need_ it,” he said, and some part of him was still appalled to hear such a thing from his mouth, but it was still true. “Just because I _miss_ it doesn’t mean I’m hurtin’ or anything. If—dammit, if I had Marilyn Monroe and the Barbi twins right here and now offering me a guilt-free night with all three of them at once I’d still say no because _it’s not you_. It’s just—you, Cas. That’s it.”

Cas seemed to get it, but Dean could still see some uncertainty. Well, too bad, because he was _done_ being a lady for tonight. “Look,” Dean said, scrunching up his face, “I don’t want to talk anymore about all this shit. I’m tired—and you are, too. Can…can we please just sleep?”

Cas just nodded; he was still looking down, but then he cut his eyes up, a little shy-like, and Dean could only give a little half-snort, half-huff. That was cheating, him looking up at him like that, and he couldn’t help it—he brushed his fingers along his jawline as he closed the distance between them and kissed him, long and leisurely. He kept it shallow and light, though, no getting worked up—he wanted to go to sleep, dammit. But, because Dean knew that unless he wanted to wake up in the middle of the night with Cas wrapped around him like some kind of heat-sucking monster, he figured he’d better get them both under the sheets. He also figured he wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the night—and, if he was going to continue this awful trend of being honest with himself, he didn’t _want_ to.

“Get in bed,” Dean sighed as he unbuttoned his jeans. Cas did as he was told, watching silently as Dean wriggled out of his pants but didn’t bother taking off his shirt. He didn’t hesitate to pull Cas right up close to him again once he got under the covers again and he turned off the light, and was not surprised when Cas scooted in to close the distance himself, and then he felt a warm palm press against his ribs. Eight years hadn’t made Cas any less weird; he still liked pet Dean and to be held when they were in bed. Dean supposed part of it was how he was cold all the time, because he certainly wasn’t a fainting flower or anything. That, and, despite what he may have been angsting about before, he really was just a big giant pussy. Dean really didn’t have any problem with it, though—he liked to hold him.

Dean stared at the wall in the dark, his chin resting on top of Cas’s head, his hands splayed against Cas’s back. He knew that under Cas’s shirt, right where his left index finger was resting, was a scar; Cas had gotten it a few years ago on a vamp hunt. He also knew, without having to look, that there was another scar on his ribs. Dean had stitched that one up himself, that night that he’d gotten Cas back. Jesus—had that really been eight years ago? He knew that Cas’s right wrist popped all the time because he’d broken it six years ago when he’d tripped over a rug and had caught himself wrong, and it sometimes hurt in bad weather so on particularly cold nights he liked to tuck that hand up under Dean’s shirt (or sometimes down the back of Dean’s shorts, to his annoyance) where it was warm. He knew that Cas’s feet got positively icy and he’d always find a way to stick them on Dean’s legs, but he would get so pissy any time Dean did the same to him. He knew there was a mole on Cas’s right hip, he knew that in spring when the pollen was high Cas’s nose would get stopped up and he’d snore when he slept, and he knew what sounds Cas made—what Cas _said_ —right as he came.

Nobody else knew that. Just Dean.

Even—even after everything. Just Dean.

His arms tightened reflexively around Cas, and then he cleared his throat and angled his face so he could see him. At the sound Cas had tipped his head back, and now was looking up at him, blinking solemnly. Dean swallowed hard, and made his throat unlock. “Cas, I—I don’t ever want you to leave just…because you think you should—shit, I don’t _want_ you to leave at all. But—you…do know, Cas…if you…” He cleared his throat again, and finally started speaking more clearly. “If you ever get—you know, sick of me…if _you_ want to leave, I won’t—”

Dean didn’t get any further than that, because he felt Cas’s fingers tighten on his shirt as his eyes went wide, and his throat worked for a moment before he said with sudden intensity, “No. I don’t—I don’t want to leave. I—”

_Jesus._ “Cas, I’m not saying—hey, relax,” Dean ordered, pulling him back against him. There he went, working himself up into a panic again. He slid his hand up under Cas’s shirt and rubbed easy circles on the smooth skin of his back, leaning down to kiss him. When he pulled away, Cas pressed his face tightly against the side of his neck, and Dean swallowed again so he could speak. “I’m just—I’m just sayin’ that…Cas, I was…a dick today, and I know I’m a dick to you way more than I should be—”

“You aren’t,” Cas said quietly, muffled against Dean’s neck.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not the saint you make me out to be,” Dean replied, disgruntled and starting to feel uncomfortable, what with that _reverent_ tone of his that he’d just trotted out.

“You’re not a saint, Dean. I know that. You’re nothing more or less than what you are.” Cas’s breath was warm against his throat, his lips brushing softly against Dean’s skin as spoke. “And I don’t want you to be anything else.”

_…Goddammit, Cas._

Cas didn’t say anything else, and Dean didn’t bother replying, and it was _not_ because his chest and throat were too tight to do so, thank you very much, he just didn’t think anything else needed to be said. Instead, he just slid a hand around to Cas’s chest to press against his breastbone because he knew it would make him happy. And he was right—Cas’s shoulders hitched once and then he mashed himself even harder against Dean, his grip around his middle squeezing tight, and even though he winced where his hand got crushed against his chest and he had to wiggle it out from in between them, Dean just let him. He knew when it was best to just let Cas do his thing, and besides, Dean was in no hurry to move either.

They were still for the most part; Cas’s shoulders were still a bit trembly, and he kept nuzzling against Dean, and Dean sometimes found himself unconsciously stroking Cas’s skin where he’d slid his hand back under his shirt, or pressing the occasional kiss to his temple. Despite being tired, he couldn’t fall asleep. His mind wouldn’t stop working, wouldn’t stop imagining Cas gone, just up and leaving because he was a jackass—and he’d find himself holding Cas tighter and would have to force himself to relax. He couldn’t tell if Cas was falling asleep, but he doubted he was. His grip was still tight, his fingers knotted in Dean’s shirt. But really, that was no indicator; Dean knew from experience that Cas could cling through the night like a barnacle, awake or asleep. Most of the time it was just him wanting to get close to something warm, Dean knew. But he wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t know why Cas was doing it now, because he was too tired to pretend anything tonight.

As much as he hated to admit anything with regards to his brother right now—especially after Cas’s little _offer_ , because that was somehow Sam’s fault, too—he did know he was right about that much. Dean _had_ been with Cas for eight years. He’d never had the inclination to split with him, never wanted to cheat on him, and…and he was happy. _Really_ happy. He’d been happy in relationships before, but this one was different and weird and had all this baggage and misunderstandings and crap—God help him, he had no idea how it even _worked_ …but it _did_.

It did work. He was happy. He was stable. And he was…in love, and loved back in ways he didn’t get and probably didn’t _want_ to get.

And really, that was all that mattered.

* * *

Oh, he was gonna _kill_ Sam. The little bitch kept blowing in his ear. Man, he was such a twelve-year-old prick, and Dean knew he would’ve been able to catch him to make him quit if he didn’t have that _goddamned rat_ attached to his thumb, and that _hurt_ —

“Stop doing that and get this thing off me!” he growled, his voice echoing weirdly in the hospital lobby, but Sam just laughed and did it again, and that was it, he was gonna beat him until he couldn’t grow anymore and couldn’t get taller than he was like he knew he would—

—and with a jolt, he snapped awake.

The first thing he became aware of was his hand—that was no rat, that was his thumb twisted painfully beneath Cas. _Ow._ He didn’t even have time to try and fix that situation when Cas exhaled again, right in his ear, making Dean twitch.

Dreaming of his brother while being snuggle-buddies with Cas. Well, that wasn’t disturbing, or anything.

Carefully, he managed to kill two birds with one stone by getting his hand out from underneath Cas and getting his arms back around him again, which made Cas shift in his sleep away from his neck, settling down into the pillows with a quiet sigh. Dean settled in with him, closing his eyes again.

The shock of waking up so suddenly wore off fast, and he was already dozy and ready to just fall back asleep. But he could see that the sun was up from the light filtering through the curtains and knew it wouldn’t be smart to do that, not with Sam and Bobby probably already awake and moving around, so he managed to keep his eyes half-open, staring sleepily at a spot on the wall, listening to Cas breathe easy in his sleep. He gently pulled Cas closer to him for no other reason than because he could, and Cas tucked himself closer, drawn to warm spots even in his sleep. Dean absently drew his fingers back and forth on the stripe of bare skin on Cas’s lower back between the hem of his shirt and the top of his shorts.

He supposed he should get up. It was always wise to get in the shower before Cas was fully awake because if you didn’t, there was a risk he’d beat you in there and then you’d never get one—and heaven help you if you needed to piss when he was in there and somebody had already claimed the downstairs bathroom. Not that Cas would care if you barged in and used the head while he was showering—Bobby’d had to actually break him of that habit himself during the first few months of his life as a human: when the bathroom door was closed, you weren’t allowed to go in there. But anybody could walk in on Cas while he showered—so long as you didn’t flush, anyway. Which Dean did actually do on purpose sometimes, just to piss him off. Because it was hilarious.

Yeah. He should get up. But he didn’t want to. He was warm—comfortably so, not all hot like he sometimes got when he slept in the same bed as Cas—and he was back to being all relaxed now that he’d gotten the cramp situation taken care of. And, of course, if he left and Cas woke up alone in bed after their throwdown last night, there was a good chance he’d take it to heart and promptly freak out and spend all of breakfast weeping on his cinnamon toast. Dean had no desire to deal with that crap.

So he stayed, touching all those familiar spots on Cas simply for something to do. He walked his fingers up Cas’s spine, he lightly traced out any scars he could reach, he slid his hand down under the waistband of his shorts to stroke his hip, and finally brought his free hand to rest under Cas’s shirt, his fingers along the grooves of his ribs, and he sat still, both impatient and in no hurry for Cas to wake his ass up.

Unfortunately, by the time Cas _did_ wake up, the impatience was in the lead and the light coming through the window was getting brighter. _About damn time_ , he thought, a little disgruntled, as Cas finally started moving, his eyes opening and closing slowly. Dean waited for Cas to look up and see him looking back at him, but he didn’t—instead, Dean watched, wryly amused, as Cas cuddled closer, his eyes closing again and his hands creeping downward and seeking the hem of Dean’s shirt. He kept still as Cas slowly pushed his fingers up, sliding across Dean’s skin until he found what he was looking for, pressing against Dean’s breastbone, and he could feel Cas stroking softly there as he mashed his face against his neck with a sigh.

When Cas finally pulled back and opened his eyes, still bleary from sleep, it didn’t take him long to notice Dean looking down at him with a raised eyebrow. Cas froze, staring back up at him, his eyes widening a little.

“So that’s what you do when you wake up before me?” Dean asked.

Cas just blinked at him, obviously trying to figure out the best thing to say that wouldn’t get him in trouble. Dean snorted once in amusement before reaching around and squeezing Cas’s butt, leaning down to bump his forehead with his own before finally pushing away, shoving the covers all on Cas and slinging his legs out of bed.

His jeans and boots were still on the floor where he’d left them, and after a perfunctory check he deemed that his pants were definitely still good for at least another day, despite the fact that Cas wanted to wash everybody’s clothes all the time simply because That Was How It Was Supposed To Be. He slid into his jeans while Cas dug his way out from under the blankets to stand and shuffle over to his dresser, pulling out a completely fresh set of clothes, yawning hugely.

After Dean had tied his boots, he stood, crossing the floor as Cas shut the drawers, and once he turned around Dean gently backed him against the wall, keeping his arms around him, one hand in his hair and the other back on his ass, pinning Cas’s arms in front him and still full of clothes. He easily tilted Cas’s head back and kissed him, hearing Cas’s sigh and loving it, leaning against him as he sucked on his lower lip before kissing a line all the way down to the base of his throat, licking the hollow there, and then nibbled his way back up to kiss him one last time, making a soft little noise as Cas kissed back.

Dean leaned his forehead against Cas’s, staring back at Cas as intensely as he could just after waking up, thumbs brushing his stubbly cheeks, and then finally pulled away, leaving Cas leaning against the wall looking all dazed and happy with his big bright eyes, and Dean figured he’d better leave in case Cas got all emotional again. Cas could go shower, and Dean would head downstairs and grab something to eat.

And, of course, Not Talk to Sam.

Bitch.


	3. Loving You Out Loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last reconciliation, a quiet goodbye before a long separation, and words that need to be said.

_October 25, 2020_

Why the hell was it that they never found any good jobs when they wanted ‘em, but that they always just landed right in their laps when they didn’t need ‘em?

Not that Dean didn’t want work. Far from it; being out crushing his enemies and seeing them driven before him, et cetera, was definitely what was best in life. He totally was up for getting back on the road and on the hunt. It was just that…well, he kinda needed to be here right now.

_He_ didn’t need to. He was fine. But he felt like he shouldn’t leave, not so soon, ‘cause, well, Cas was such a big giant baby.

He groused to himself as he clumped up the stairs. They’d dredged up what looked like a new case barely even a week after they’d gotten back off that kelpie job in West Virginia—only by that time, Bobby had shaken off his cold. As a result, he didn’t have to kick Nurse Cas out of the house for trying to wrap him in cotton and put him in an Iron Lung or something so there was no need to take him along when Dean and Sam headed out.

Not that Dean wanted to deal with having both of those bitches in the car at once. Not after—after these past few days. He didn’t need that shit. What he _did_ want was to get back on the road and back to his life and away from all this drama-queen crap.

But hell, only three days after—after he and Cas had—had—straightened things out? Dean saw the way his face had dropped when he and Sam and started making plans to head out tomorrow morning. Cas had been in full-cling mode for the past three nights; it was like sharing a bed with an octopus. The minute Dean got in to go to sleep, Cas was all arms and legs and wrapping around him and pretty much squeezing the breath out of him. Dean only put up with it because the idiot had managed to get himself worked up into such a complete shitfit on the last hunt that he’d managed to turn what was a merely uncomfortable situation into a goddamn nuclear meltdown—and all that for no friggin’ reason.

Dean had about decided that the whole fiasco, from start to finish, had been some elaborate charade Sam had set up just to get him back for all the times he’d poured salt in his coffee.

But however it had happened, the point was that it happened, and Cas was all _emotional_ and shit, and here Dean was up and leaving—and probably because of that fucking curse. _Again._ Yeah, he guessed that—that _settling_ things with Cas must have counted as being, well, _settled_ , so it up and bit him in the ass again, making him leave right when he most didn’t want to.

Dean sighed as he reached the top of the stairs. He knew Cas was already moping over it. He and Sam had been doing their standard weapons check downstairs earlier, their usual prep before heading out. Once they’d finished, it was time to pack up their clothes and gear, and only when Dean had gotten up from the table had he realized that Cas had disappeared.

God, he was probably up here sighing and sniffling in the dark. It wouldn’t be the first time. Dean scowled as he twisted the knob on the door to his bedroom and swung it open—and then furrowed his brow when all he found behind it was an empty room.

Oh—there was a stripe of light coming from under the bathroom door down the hall, and he could hear the water running. He snorted. Well, then, if that was the case, Dean would probably be packed and already in bed and asleep before the little prune finally wandered back in here. Knowing what he did for as long as he had about the human version of Cas, Dean had for a while amusedly speculated that Cas was not a cleanliness freak, he was just a complete and utter horndog. His habit of ridiculously long showers were not about getting clean, but because he had some kind of long, bizarre, and elaborate jerk-off routine in there. It was all great fun until the prissy little voice of his prissy little brother that was always butting into his head pointed out just what the _subject_ of Cas’s dirty little shower-time fantasies would be, and that pretty much sucked all the humor right out of it. Shaking his head, Dean shut the door behind him and crossed the room to the closet where his bag was neatly stored and then took it over to the dresser to get his stuff.

Castiel the Laundry Fairy had visited in the night, as usual, and so all his clothes were cleaned and pressed and starched and whatever else he did to them. Now were sitting in neat stacks in the drawers, folded so crisply and precisely that they looked like a friggin’ department store display. Dean scooped up his shirts, wadded them up, and stuffed them in his bag, followed by jeans, and then socks and shorts, and he was good to go. He’d get his toothbrush and everything out of the bathroom in the morning.

He’d crammed everything in and was zipped up and ready and just going through an inventory of the various little items that he kept tucked in the side pockets—floss, nail clippers, tweezers, that sort of thing—when he heard the doorknob turn. He looked up and over his shoulder in time to see a very pink Cas come moseying into the room, his hair standing up in crazy little wet spikes. Dean felt his lips twitch at the sight, which turned into a full grin when he saw that the dirty clothes Cas was carrying from the bathroom were _neatly folded up_ , and it was just too much when the OCD retard actually leaned down to stack them carefully in the bottom of his clothes hamper.

Chuckling to himself, he left his bag on the desk and moved behind him. Cas gave a bit of a jump when he turned around to find Dean standing right there, but when Dean slid one hand around his warm skinny waist, the other coming up to cradle his head, he went all soft and melty immediately, the little sap, leaning in to press against his chest and tipping his chin up in obvious invitation.

Cas’s mouth was very warm, and after being in the shower for so long, his lips didn’t feel quite so chapped as usual. Dean slicked his tongue over the plump lower lip before drawing it into his mouth, rubbing his thumb over Cas’s smooth cheek and feeling him sigh. Cas’s mouth opened obligingly when Dean’s tongue pressed insistently against it, and after a moment that just-showered flavor went away and he could just taste _Cas_.

Dean sighed a little too when Cas’s hands came up to rest on his shoulders, his tongue moving slowly against his own, and he pulled him in closer. It was so nice when Cas didn’t flip his shit when they did their thing—even after all these years, it was still a coin toss if he was gonna lose his mind the minute Dean touched him.

But this time he didn’t. And he kept it that way, too, just moving a little to wrap his arms around Dean’s shoulders and tilting his head to kiss back, but no wigging out. Dean got to kiss him and hold him and touch him without having to worry about getting mauled. Cas’s body was all heated and flushed and still a little damp from his shower, and as Dean licked at the clean skin of his neck, he couldn’t help think that it was a good thing, really, that he was such a skinny little ninety-eight pound weakling, because he just fit so well in his arms.

Dean lightly blew on the wet spot he’d left on Cas’s neck, which turned into a little chuff of amusement when he saw the sudden prickling of goosebumps. He took pity on him and covered that spot with his mouth again, wrapping his arms a little tighter to keep him from getting cold.

Cas was feathering his own little kisses all over his neck, so Dean left off what he was doing and tilted his head back to give him room, just moving his hands slowly up and down his back. Cas had moved down to suck on his pulse point, but was being so gentle for a change that Dean didn’t have to worry about getting a hickey. Good thing, too—someone ( _Sam_ ) would be able to see it if he left one where he was. If Cas got too rough and that happened, well, then Dean would be forced to do somethin’ ugly to him.

The way Cas was suckling at his earlobe now was getting him all hot and bothered, so he reached up to guide him back to his mouth. His lips were already open when he met him halfway, so Dean wasted no time in slipping his tongue between them, finally letting his hand drift downward from his back to his butt. He held on for a minute, before moving his hand up to the waistband of Cas’s shorts and then down underneath them so he could get a warm bare handful.

He waited to see if the little masher was gonna try to start pawing at him, but he didn’t, so Dean let himself relax, half-squeezing and half-rubbing his ass as they kissed. It was all still nice and easy and slow, although things had gotten a bit deeper by this point. Even with Dean giving him a bit of a grope like he was, Cas still was just letting him take the lead. Dean narrowed his eyes a little and he slid his hand up out of Cas’s shorts; when Cas got horny, he didn’t just sit there like this. What was his problem—he’d better not be playing the stoic all the sudden. Dean was puttin’ his thing down, here—Cas had better be getting turned on or else.

He slid his hand around his pointy hip, rubbing his thumb in the notches of his hipbone, and then moved further until his hand was pressed against the front of Cas’s shorts. He felt a small grunt against his mouth, but more importantly, he felt the half-hard cock beneath the flannel. Well, all right, then. He didn’t have to re-educate Cas that he was Dean Winchester and that nobody but nobody was not turned on by him.

He kept his hand where it was, pressed all up against his crotch, the palm of his hand rubbing slowly against his prick through the cloth, and he smirked a little against Cas’s increasingly eager kisses as he felt him get fully hard after just a few moments of that. One of Cas’s hands started migrating downward from where it was around his neck, slipping down over his chest to press once against his breastbone, before he moved to trail his fingers over his stomach, and then it was Dean’s turn to grunt a little when Cas’s hand very firmly covered his own semi-hard-on through his jeans.

Dean was still rubbing though Cas’s shorts, and Cas rubbed back. Dean he drew away to tease him just with his fingertips, and _shit_ , Cas did the same thing, the _exact_ same thing—he was _copying_ him. What the hell—he was _really_ copying him, and it was like Dean was fucking playing with _himself_ every time he touched Cas.

Well, that got him all the way up in a hurry. The bastard. Dean wasn’t too terribly annoyed, though, ‘cause it still felt really good, particularly since he could do something he liked to Cas and get the same treatment in return. But he still hadn’t told him he could do that. Dean curled his fingers, the loose fabric of Cas’s shorts making it where he could get a decent grip on his cock and slide the material back and forth over him. He knew the friction had to be damned-near unbearable, and he took Cas’s shudder as a confirmation. What made it particularly satisfying was that the stiff denim covering his own dick wasn’t nearly so accommodating, and he felt Cas’s fingers moving rather fruitlessly over him— _Yeah, let’s see you do that_ , he smirked to himself.

But then—goddammit. Cas’s other hand had dropped down from his shoulders, the fingers dipping down below his waistband so he could pop the button open. Dean’s back tensed, because now he _was_ gonna do that—well, after he got his pants opened, anyway, but Cas was taking his sweet time in doing it, tugging the zipper down as slow as possible and the anticipation was making Dean kinda crazy.

Finally, Cas pushed open the flaps of his fly, and while Dean kept down the moan that tried to escape him, but he couldn’t stop a shudder of his own when Cas’s hand curled around his stiff cock through his shorts and started slowly jacking him, the otherwise soft material of his shorts rasping over his skin, and yes, it was damned-near unbearable.

But Dean didn’t stop what he was doing, so neither did Cas, and every time he rubbed Cas just so, chasing his little gasps and sighs and shivers, he swore he wouldn’t do the same when Cas copied him, but even though he knew when it was coming, he always did. He finally couldn’t take it any more at the sound of Cas’s moan when Dean rubbed at the head of his dick, and the cloth-covered thumb that dragged over the tip of his own prick in return about drove him insane. Dean let go abruptly, reaching around to grab Cas by his ass and pull him sharply forward, growling a little against his mouth as he pressed their hips very firmly together and rocked against him.

Cas’s hands went tightly around his middle, his fingers flexing in his shirt, and he pushed his hips forward too. Dean’s kisses got more insistent, and Cas answered in kind, and Dean shifted a little until he could feel the hard ridge of Cas’s cock, firm and hot against his own, and he ground against it, and Cas pressed back.

Dean kept it up, just slow, grinding thrusts, until his knees started to feel a bit wobbly. Okay, time to get horizontal, here, before he went down in a very undignified heap in the middle of the floor and took Cas with him. He gripped Cas’s ass a little tighter, holding him still and stopping their rubbing while softening their kisses back to gentleness again.

Man, he didn’t know quite what to make of Cas tonight, calming down so easily. He’d half-expected to have to squeeze him into submission before he’d be able to detach him long enough to get them onto the bed. But nope, Cas’s mouth went soft and gentle immediately, his rocking hips slowing to a stop with hardly any prompting at all.

Dammit, Dean wanted to get on the bed, but he didn’t want to let go of Cas, so small and warm and all wrapped around him like he was. Best just suck it up and do it, though, and he heaved a sigh before pulling away a little. Of course, when he pulled back, Cas had to go and open his eyes and _look_ at him, those big eyes all bright and shining, and that kinda killed his progress—had to go back in for another kiss, and maybe reach around back for his ass again, just for one more little fondle.

Cas was still being so easy and gentle, though. It wasn’t a fight to pull away, so Dean stepped back and just patted his butt and gave his elbow a little tug towards the bed. Cas quickly crossed to his side and got in with all speed—how the hell he could get so cold after parboiling himself in a shower that was long and hot enough to turn the drafty upstairs bathroom into a sauna, Dean had no idea. Shaking his head, he moved to stand next to the bed, and then pushed his jeans down off his hips before he sat down to unlace his boots, shoving pants, shoes, and socks alike into a pile on the floor when he was done, and dropping his flannel overshirt down with them, leaving him just in his T-shirt and shorts like Cas.

He kicked up his legs and got under the covers, but paused to give Cas a look when he was suddenly right there, all pressed up against him with big eyes and tentatively petting fingers, and Dean snorted, rolling on his side a little to get his arms around him, and then flopping over again on his back, dragging Cas with him. Cas came eagerly, getting am arm across him and braced on the mattress so he could drag himself up, wiggling around until he was all stretched out on top of him.

Dean sighed, settling back. There—holding him standing up had been all well and good, but this was so much better: in the nice comfy bed, Cas’s weight so warm and soft that even all his pointiness didn’t bother him as he just looked down at him with bright eyes, his fingers lightly stroking Dean’s neck. Totally worth getting over here. And even more worth it when he curled his hand around Cas’s neck and pulled him down into a kiss.

Trust Cas to ruin even a good thing, he grumbled to himself after a while. This gentle, almost passive Cas was all well and good, only he wasn’t, you know, _doing_ anything. He was just kissing and petting in nice but strategically unimportant places. And it didn’t look like that was going to change any time soon. Well, fine, then—Dean would charge up San Juan Hill without him. Skimming his hands down, he found the hem of Cas’s shirt and got his fingers up under it and starting pulling upwards. He was half-sure that he’d just lay there like a big lump of lead, but no, he at least had the decency to prop himself up on his hands and help Dean get the shirt off of him. Ah, that was more like it—now he was going for Dean’s shirt too, and he pushed up on his elbows so Cas could work it over his head, and then he fell back into the pillows, and two big sighs escaped both of them as Cas lowered himself back down on top of him, their bare chests pressed against each other.

Things picked up a little, then, even if Cas was still being so bizarrely docile. At least he was doing something, his fingers twining in Dean’s hair as he gently bit the side of his neck. Dean was really liking this, being able to rub his fingers on Cas’s nipples and slide his hands down to knead the cheeks of his ass as he rocked his hips upwards against him, and all without having to worry about being assaulted. Maybe Cas had finally gotten his sex-manias under control.

Mmm—Cas was on the move, now, traveling downwards. It was a well-worn path, yeah, but the way his lips moved across his chest was always different, and Dean couldn’t help the occasional tiny gasp that escaped him as Cas’s mouth trailed down to suck on the skin at his collarbone, lick at the base of his throat, and close his teeth over his nipple. But then—yep, there he went, doing his thing, only this time Cas wasn’t even petting him. He was just pressing his cheek against Dean’s breastbone, breathing slowly, his eyes tightly shut. Dean felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and he reached down to run his fingers through Cas’s damp hair.

Dork.

Cas let out a ridiculously happy sigh, and then turned his face to nuzzle a little at and then kiss his chest. Dean watched him, but then he really didn’t have time to be amused or much anything else anymore, because Cas pink tongue had darted out and was rasping wetly on his skin now, and he was still moving downwards. It didn’t matter how many times he’d done it, he was still damn good at building up to it, so that by the time Dean felt him tugging at the edge of his shorts with his teeth, his back was stiff and his breathing was quick and shallow.

He could feel Cas’s hot breath through the material of his pants, and Dean swallowed, his mouth dry and cottony. He kept watching, watching the way Cas rubbed his face all over the front of his shorts, using his nose and his lips and his teeth and his tongue to tease him through the fabric, glancing up at him every so often while he did it. It wasn’t any kind of relief when he stopped teasing him, because then it was a whole new kind of teasing when he sat up and hooked his fingers in the waistband of Dean’s shorts and started pulling them down, slowly, inch by inch, and _fuck_ , the way he dragged the rough elastic over the head of his cock was so _totally_ on purpose, the bitch. Dean lifted his hips, but Cas didn’t pull them all the way down, just to the tops of his thighs, and _dammit_ , he went right back to that _nuzzling_ shit, just lightly rubbing his face all over Dean’s balls and his cock.

Dean had just briefly squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed noisily, when he twitched and hissed at the sudden, hot pressure of a tongue on his balls, and he opened his eyes just in time to see Cas dragging his tongue from way down on his sack all the way up the whole length of his prick where it rested against his stomach. Then he was curling his fingers around it to draw it up to his lips so he could lap at the moisture that had gathered at the tip, and Cas was looking up at him the whole time—no, _looking_ up at him, like he _always_ did when he did this. Dean could only stare, his breath coming sharp and quick, as Cas kept dragging his tongue over him, again and again, _agonizingly_ slowly, until he finally slid Dean’s cock into his mouth and began to suck.

Dean let out a huge exhale, his eyes falling closed, but he forced them open again, putting his arm behind his head while his other hand fisted in the sheets, taking slow, even breaths as he watched. Just like everything else tonight with this weird mood of his, Cas was steady and gentle, his mouth slippery and wet as he softly sucked, his tongue drawing spirals all along the shaft as he drew back, making Dean groan quietly. Cas didn’t stop what he was doing as he finally moved to tug Dean’s shorts all the way down and off, and even with Dean’s wiggling around to help him and kick them off to the floor, Cas never let his cock slip out of his mouth. Dean settled back down again and kept watching as Cas kept sucking, watching how his lips were so fucking tight around his prick, shiny with spit, the way his cheeks hollowed when he sucked, his head bobbing up and down, up and down, and shit, seeing him like that was enough to turn the sparks in his belly into a blaze. But it was when Cas looked up that lances of fire shot all the way down to his toes— _looking_ at him like that, his eyes so soft and adoring, with Dean’s cock in his mouth… _Christ_ , he was gonna go fucking _crazy_ watching him like that.

Cas pulled away, the hand that had been working in tandem with his mouth now stroking all over, and he looked up again, and Dean didn’t look away, and Cas didn’t either, still staring him right in the eye as he leaned down to tongue his balls while he jerked him. Dean’s hips were making little reflexive movements against his stroking hand, while Cas’s other gripped his sack as he licked it.

A sharp jerk wracked Dean’s body and a strangled noise that was half-protest, half…something else was wrenched from his throat at the horrifyingly delicious sensation of Cas’s tongue slinking down _beneath_ his balls, _behind_ them, licking his _taint_ , oh, _Jesus_ , no, he couldn’t deal with that, not _that_ , he didn’t _care_ how awesome it was, he _couldn’t_ , not—

But then Cas’s tongue was retreating, moving upwards again, and Dean’s brain barely had time to catch up with it to tell him that his asshole was safe before Cas was sucking him off again and Dean couldn’t think about anything else anymore. He just moaned, fighting to keep his eyes open as his fingers threaded through Cas’s hair, and when Cas swallowed his prick down, his tongue on his balls and his face pressed all the way up against his stomach, that was enough, and Dean tugged him away.

Cas slid up and pulled his mouth off his dick with a pop, which made Dean’s throat lock up for a minute, but then he managed to rasp, “Come here,” and pulled at his hair again. Cas did as he was told, crawling up over him, and Dean drew him into a deep kiss, wanting to lick every part of Cas’s mouth that had been on his cock just now. Cas let him, not fighting him with his tongue like he sometimes did when he got wild, just resting on top of him, his hands curling around in his hair, letting Dean have his mouth however he wanted it. And he wanted all of it, and didn’t come up for air until he got it.

Cas gasped a little when Dean finally released him, and dammit if that didn’t get him going too. He needed to calm down—screw Cas for getting him so worked up anyway. Cas was still hovering over him, his mouth open as he panted slightly, and Dean couldn’t help going in for one more kiss, but no tongues, and he kept it short, just directing Cas’s head down on his shoulder afterwards. Cas laid down quite happily, pressing his face against the side of Dean’s neck with a little sigh, spreading tiny kisses all along the skin there. It wasn’t exactly relaxing, but at least it wasn’t as maddening as watching him sucking his cock, so Dean just rubbed Cas’s back and petted his hair while he got himself under control.

Dean hadn’t spent the better part of twenty years building up his bedroom endurance for nothing, so he’d simmered down and was confident that he wasn’t going to go off like a shot in no time at all. But now it was his turn—or rather, it was _Cas’s_ turn to get his, and Dean was gonna give it to him. He was damn tired of this quiet little submissive act—Cas was gonna get it now.

He’d just been lightly running his hands over him while Cas macked on his neck, but now he started caressing him with a lot more purpose, pushing him away from his neck and then coaxing him to keep rolling until he was on his back, and Dean moved over him. Cas’s arms went right around his shoulders and pulled him down for a kiss. Oh, and now he was gonna try to take the lead, huh? Hell no—Dean was the engineer. Cas was just the passenger, and this train was pulling out of the station, so Cas had just better hang on.

Dean broke away from his mouth and traveled downwards, over his jaw and his chin, down his neck, using his tongue but keeping his teeth back until he got down to his collarbones. That would be safely hidden under his shirt and Dean particularly enjoyed leaving hickeys there, so he stopped off and sucked and nipped at the skin until he felt Cas shudder beneath him, and he pulled away to admire the red mark he’d left before soothing it with his tongue and then moving on. Cas wasn’t the bulky type, just wiry, and if Dean squeezed a little around his pecs he’d found he could draw not just his little nipples but also the surrounding flesh into his mouth, and it was almost like sucking a real tit. And Cas loved it anyway, so Dean did it now, getting exactly the kind of moan he was after when he did.

He mouthed at both sides of his chest, Cas’s fingers tightening on his shoulders, then licking up the middle—but paused, glancing upwards. Cas’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back, and Dean smiled a little, and whispered, “Hey, Cas.”

His eyes opened, his head coming up a little to meet his eyes, and Dean’s grin widened, and when he was sure that Cas was watching, he brought up his hand to stroke along his breastbone, and then leaned down to press a lingering kiss right over his heart.

Cas’s hands convulsed on his shoulders, gripping him tightly, and Dean felt the hitch of his chest beneath his lips. When he looked up, he found Cas looking back with overbright eyes— _wet_ eyes, there at the corners, and Dean couldn’t help but roll his own a little, but then Cas’s hand was curled around the back of his head and pulling him insistently upward. Dean decided that he’d better let Cas have his way and let him do his touchy-feely crap, so he raised up only to find himself being kissed within an inch of his life, Cas’s ropy little arms wrapped around him like a fucking vise. Dean played along, his hand rubbing back and forth on his chest until Cas wore himself out and had to break away to breathe.

Dean smirked a little down at him, and got a small, watery smile in return, just that tiny curl at the corner of Cas’s mouth that lit up his face more than the widest grin ever could have. Dean leaned down to kiss that upturned corner of Cas’s lips, bumped their noses together, and then moved back down to where his hand was still moving so he could drop one more kiss over his heart before he went along his way.

He took his time on his stomach; Cas really had the most ridiculously soft belly, especially since he was such a scrawny little dude everywhere else. Dean had discovered that he very much liked finding soft, sweet-tasting places that he could suck on and leave little marks all over him. It was paying Cas back anyway—he did that all the time to Dean’s own stomach.

He was also stalling and he knew it. He went ahead and pulled Cas’s shorts down and off him, tossing them somewhere on the floor, but then gripped his hips and went back to his lower torso, nibbling around his navel and worrying at the thin skin that covered his hipbones. He was very deliberately keeping his eyes on the pale skin of his belly, but finally sucked in a deep breath and looked down at the stiff cock right there by his face; Dean hadn’t even touched Cas since before, other than accidentally when pulling down his shorts, but his dick was already swollen and leaking.

Wrapping his hand around the base of Cas’s prick, he blew out the breath he’d been holding, eyeing it before flicking his tongue over the tip. Cas always bucked like a bronco the first time Dean’s mouth touched him, and there he went, his hips jerking upward with a quiet choking noise from up on the pillows with just that one lick. But he settled back down soon enough, so there was nothing for it. Dean could feel Cas’s eyes on him, but he refused to look up at him; he _couldn’t_ look at him while he was doing this, so he kept his eyes very studiously downturned, steeled himself, took a deep breath, and put Cas’s cock in his mouth.

He focused on the long, quavering moan from up at the head of the bed so he didn’t have to think too much about what he was sucking on. He’d gotten more or less used to sucking dick now and again (which usually made him feel kinda sick when he thought too much about it)—but he would never _like_ it. Certainly not like Cas did. But that was ‘cause Cas didn’t just “like” it. Cas _loved_ it—to the point that he fucking _got off on it_ , the little feathered freak.

Yeah. No fucking way he’d ever be like that. Cas could have his happy fetishes all he wanted; Dean did _not_ share them. He stared at the mole on Cas’s hip that was about at eye level like this and just sucked. Good thing for Cas that it didn’t take much effort on Dean’s part to really light his fire, ‘cause this was all the effort he was gonna get. But that much was obviously fine by him; Dean had only been at it for a little while and already Cas was moaning and writhing beneath him. Dean stifled the resigned sigh that he felt trying to escape—not like he really could with a dick in his mouth anyway—and kept at it, working his mouth to make sure he had plenty of spit to keep things slick beneath his hand where he was jacking him while he sucked it.

He didn’t take a break—he knew that if he took Cas’s prick out of his mouth he’d never make himself put it back in again. So he kept slurping away, his hands squeezing and stroking, and was gonna just keep at it until he decided that he was done.

Dean twitched irritably when he felt Cas’s blundering hands land on his shoulders. Dean hated it when Cas grabbed him like that—was too much like he was trying to _steer_ or something. It was even worse when he touched his hair like he was now, because then it felt like he was trying to force him to go deeper. Wasn’t it enough that he was sucking his dick in the first place? Dean sucked harder, trying to hurry things along and ignoring the raw spot he always got on his tongue where the head of Cas’s cock rubbed too hard and the way Cas was leaking everywhere and the nasty taste it left in his mouth. But despite all that gross shit, he couldn’t ignore it when Cas said it, _sobbed_ it, softly so no one else could hear, but Dean could—just his name, and his chest clenched and before he could catch himself he looked up—

Fuck, Cas was watching, and he was looking at him, _looking_ at him, and Dean was looking back with his cock in his mouth and—god _dammit_ , he was _blushing_ , Dean was fucking _blushing_ , looking up at Cas while he was sucking his dick and Cas was _watching him do it_ —

Okay. He was done now. Enough was too much, thank you.

Dean sat up quickly, dropping Cas’s prick and scrubbing at his mouth and chin and even his tongue with the back of his hand. He sort of worked his tongue around, swallowing tightly, trying to get that taste out of his mouth and working his stiff jaw, but then he happened to look up and found Cas looking back with such a gooey, adoring expression that his lingering disgust kind of melted away and he just crawled back on top of Cas so he could kiss him.

Once Dean got back up there, Cas immediately attached himself to him, all arms and legs like he had been all this week, and now it was his turn to jam his tongue down Dean’s throat, his hands everywhere. As usual, Dean’s dick had drooped a little—didn’t matter how happy it made Cas, going down on him always kinda soured the mood for Dean—but getting back up here with Cas wrapped around him and getting kissed like there was no tomorrow, Cas pressing his hand on his chest and rocking his hips up against him, got Dean hard and ready again in short order. So much so that when Cas reached for his prick, he didn’t need his help and was already rarin’ to go.

Dean’s mouth twisted a little; Cas always looked so _pleased_ to find himself with a handful of hard cock. But then he just groaned quietly when Cas gave him a few expert strokes, finishing with a maddening little twiddle with his thumb before he let go. Dean might have been irritated to be just given that little bit of a tease, but Cas had swung his arm up and was groping for the slit in the mattress, and Dean knew it wasn’t so much a tease as it was a preview of things to come, so it was okay.

Luck of the draw had Cas coming back with a half-full bottle of the heating stuff; the odds were in its favor, though, as they’d developed a preference for it, Cas especially, and Dean held out his hand when Cas popped it open. He worked the generous handful Cas gave him over his fingers and then slid down to smear them over Cas’s balls and up along his prick, and the jerk of his hips and the helpless groan he got for his troubles was just fine.

Cas had just poured a huge mess of the stuff all over his own palm, and after snapping the bottle closed again and setting it aside, Dean involuntarily tensed a little when Cas reached down, waiting for it—oh yeah, there it was, the warm, slippery fingers curling around his cock that left tingling trails in their wake, and he grunted and pressed down into Cas’s grip. But then he teased him _again_ , just giving him a few quick strokes and getting things warmed up before letting him go. What the hell was he _doing_ , futzing around down there? He was supposed to be getting Dean off. Dean was jacking Cas, after all, and he squeezed a little harder, feeling Cas’s movements stutter as his eyes closed briefly, _see,_ that’s _what you’re supposed to be doing—oh._

Cas’s hand was back, gripping him lightly, and he was wiggling around, and Dean felt his cock sliding over Cas’s legs to rest in the furrow between his thighs—the _slick_ furrow between his thighs. So _that’s_ what he’d been doing. Dean felt his breathing speed up a little and his middle felt just a little warmer now that he knew the score. He let go of Cas’s prick and reached down to help to push his own cock between Cas thighs, and _fuck_ , he was holding them so _tight_ , he could barely get in there. Cas was squeezing the _life_ out of him, and Dean pulled back and could only groan when he thrust forward again into that tight, slippery heat.

God, he loved it like this, and he wrapped his free arm around Cas and pulled him in close up against his chest and pressed against his neck as he started to thrust for real, fucking that tight hot space between his thighs. He remembered his other hand, still wet with lube and down against Cas’s hip, and he wiggled it up between them until he found Cas’s prick and started to jerk it while he humped him.

Dean felt Cas moaning softly, his hips raising up against Dean’s tugging fingers, but he kept his thighs clenched as Dean rutted between them, never letting up and keeping it so fucking tight. Dean would have never thought it could be so good this way, but it was, and Dean moaned his own approval in Cas’s ear, making him break out into goosebumps. Cas’s head was rocking back and forth on the pillows; he was getting close, Dean could tell, it never took much to finish him off after Dean had sucked his cock, but no, Dean wasn’t ready for him to come yet. He slowed his stroking even as he thrust faster, and he panted in Cas’s ear, “Not yet—you stay with me.”

Cas’s hands flexed where he gripped Dean’s back, one on his shoulder and the other clamped around the right cheek of his ass as though driving him forward harder between his thighs. Dean raised up to find his mouth for a messy kiss, and through their wet lips and licking tongues Dean murmured again, “You stay with me, Cas,” and then again, “You _stay_ with me,” because he wanted them to come together, wanted him to stay with him, wanted him here, _needed_ him here, needed him to _stay_.

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas breathed, and the quick motions of Dean’s hips stuttered, because god _damn_ , every fucking time Cas said his name like that it sent him shooting towards the edge, and he picked back up again, slapping his hips against Cas’s, thrusting faster, jerking Cas faster. He tried to focus enough to hear his moans, ‘cause he had to _stay_ with him, and Dean wanted to stay too, but he couldn’t. All he could do was kiss Cas until he couldn’t fucking _breathe_ and he held him as close and tight against him as he could but it wasn’t close enough, _God_ , he had to have him, he _needed_ him, he _loved_ him, Cas couldn’t leave because Dean fucking _loved_ him, and he tore his mouth away from his only to bury his face in the crook of Cas’s neck and gasp, “Love you,” and Cas’s hands went so suddenly tight on his back that he could feel the half-moons of his fingernails digging into his flesh.

“Love you,” he panted again, his thrusts losing their rhythm because he was close, _so_ close, but he kept going. “Y’hear me, Cas? _Love you._ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” Cas sighed rapturously, his hips jerking upwards to thrust his cock in Dean’s tight grip.

“An’ you love _me_ ,” Dean gasped against his neck and he started to see sparks igniting behind his eyes when he heard Cas breathe, “Yes, Dean, _yes_ ,” and Dean tore away from the soft skin behind his ear to press his forehead against his so he could _see_ him, see nothing but his eyes, but he needed to _hear_ him too, needed to _know_ , because then he would know he wouldn’t leave.

“ _Say_ it, Cas,” he begged, desperate to hear it, to know it for _sure_ , “Say it, _please_!”

Cas fingers convulsed, clawing stinging lines down his back, and Dean felt the sudden hot spurt on his fingers just as Cas moaned, “ _Love_ you, Dean, yes, _I love you!_ ” over and over again and Dean’s vision clouded over white as he came and he could dimly hear himself sobbing something, maybe Cas’s name, he didn’t know, but he didn’t care ‘cause he could still hear _Cas_ and Cas _loved_ him—Cas—fuck, _yes_ — _love you_ — _Cas!_

And then Dean collapsed, landing in a heap on top of Cas, his face mashed against his shoulder. The room was quiet except for their labored breathing, and Dean felt his eyes stinging and he squeezed them shut, sniffing to keep his nose from running everywhere. Oh, yeah, great, crying after sex, ‘cause that was hot. He rubbed his cheek on Cas’s flushed skin to wipe away the evidence. He didn’t want him seein’ that. But then he paused because as he rubbed he felt a little wet trail from Cas’s eye too. Dean didn’t feel any better knowing that he wasn’t the bigger pussy. No, ‘cause he was still _just_ as big a pussy as Cas was—and Cas was a great big fucking pussy.

Cas shifted beneath him. Dean made to roll away, only he was thwarted when Cas’s loose arms suddenly tightened, one skinny leg slipping out from under him and hooking around Dean’s own, his calf rubbing the back of Dean’s knee and holding him right where he was. What, did Cas _like_ this? Did he like being flattened into the mattress and sitting there in a pool of spunk and used lube? So much for him being a clean freak. But Dean stayed; he didn’t even have enough energy to make sure he wasn’t just completely quashing the little twerp. Even if he was, Cas seemed to like it, one hand just languidly stroking up and down Dean’s sweat-damp back, and the other—where else? Pressed firmly against the pulse in his neck.

Grimacing a little, Dean managed to pull his slimy right hand out from where it was still wrapped around Cas’s limp dick; Cas made a small noise in his throat when Dean pulled away, but he didn’t move. He flopped his gross hand around until he found the crumpled blanket somewhere next to him and grabbed a handful, trying to wipe off, because that was seriously disgusting—it always was. He made a valiant effort not to think about what he was lying in right now, or that he and Cas were pretty much glued together with all that shit on their stomachs and between Cas’s legs. It was enough to make him wanna puke.

Not enough to make him move, though, even if he had thought about all that crap all over them in spite of himself. Instead, he just wormed his now only slightly-sticky hand under Cas to hold him close, sighing hugely, and Cas did too.

He and Sam were heading out about eight tomorrow morning. That was in just barely eight hours. God knew when they’d be back here for any decent length of time, what with that curse of Cain riding their asses. Dean nuzzled the warm skin beneath his cheek until he found Cas’s steady pulse, and he pressed his lips against the soft little beat.

Eight whole hours. They’d manage—they’d had less time to themselves before. And yeah, Dean would leave the next day, but no matter how long they’d be on the road, it wouldn’t be forever.

And Cas would be waiting for him when he came back.


End file.
